Flickerflash
by Miranda Crystal-Bearer
Summary: Like the flickerflash of light from Niko's katana: a collection of shorts in the Cal Leandros universe. Mostly from Niko's perspective.
1. Flickerflash

**A/N: **I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her.

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><p><em>Crack<em> low and soft and bristly, change of direction heralded too late by the end of a braid. Shrill high _sing_ of the blade, notes changed in the barest of whistles, aligning the strike - flickerflash of light down sleek steel and blonde hair alike. Body lean and powerful, all grace and utter control. Perfection in the control, power restrained, and the rainsoft tap-tap of bare feet on matting. Nothing to betray the sheer power of the strike, thunder and lightning together in one swift blow, and grey eyes glittering like the steel - only hot and harsh, like the smell of ozone in the storm. Hurricane bent to will, focused into a single calm center surrounded by devastation.

Niko took the training room apart in methodical strokes, moving from target to target in silence.

And under the still calm surface beat a thundering heart and red blood raced down every limb, flushing olive-dark skin. The iron control hid a core of firey passion, rejoicing in the song of the blade with every scrap of soul, every beat of heart, delighting in the resistance, the cut. Perfection and still the hunger for something _more_, to be best of all, to rise above the limits flesh set. To strain _farther_ still - he could feel that if he could just move faster, hold on, there was something just out of reach and that, _that_ would be something wonderful, incredible...!

Forever reaching for beyond that perfection, because he felt he could reach it with _just a little more_.

And when he reached it - then, ah, _then_ Cal could be safe forever.

Niko just had to reach that point.

He could make it, he knew, if he just _tried_ a little harder, just a little more, and it was ever closer, with every straining breath, every driving flickerflash of sword.

But not today, and he knew it, felt the shift of body and give of wearied flesh. Limits again reached, and Niko came to a silent halt, braid swaying softly against his bare sweaty back. Disappointment keen, and he felt the goal recede into the distance, a distance reddened with the ache of tired muscles like a bloody sunset.

Not today. But soon. (How long had he told himself that?) But soon.

And Cal would be safe.


	2. Memories

**A/N: **I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her.

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><p>The memory surfaces slowly, blurred by time and perception. It is haunting, bringing with it the barely-remembered childhood sensations of fear and worry in a world too wild. Niko, deep in his meditation, lets it surface. The sense of mystery, unknowing, and the present pressing fear; he takes it in, and remembers.<p>

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><p>Birth was a traumatic experience. Especially for a four-year-old.<p>

Sophia didn't scream, not out loud, but the noises she made, freezing in her pacing of the hall when the contractions struck, were somehow just as disturbing. Animal-like grunts and low shuddering moans. For the first few hours, Niko had only noticed vaguely, but had stayed quiet with his blocks. Now, however, it was hard to ignore. And when Sophia vanished into the bathroom again, Niko came creeping along to stand at the door, wide-eyed. He didn't quite understand, but from the way Sophia kept curling around her large belly...

He couldn't see the actual birth from the doorway, as Sophia crouched in the bathtub, but he head the sudden gurgling, mewling cries, and saw Sophia's bloody hand beckon. Heart pounding, frightened by the blood, Niko crept closer, and stared in astonishment at the ugly _thing _Sophia held. Red-faced with dark hair, covered in thick white gunk, it squirmed, making tiny choking noises.

Sophia tied off the pulsing umbilical cord and cut it. Niko flinched from the spurt of blood. Sophia sneered tiredly and beckoned him back.

"You've wanted a pet for a while now. Take it," she croaked, her voice hoarse.

That was most definitely _not _a pet. Niko was pretty sure it might be a baby, but it was ugly and wet and its head looked a funny shape. But he was more afraid of making Sophia upset than he was of the maybe-baby, so he obediently held out his arms. The baby was wet and slippery, and after a surprised moment he simply sat down on the cheap linoleum and plopped it in his lap. It writhed and raised its tiny fists and made those funny mewling cries. After a moment, Niko grabbed a mostly-clean towel off the floor and tried to clean off his arms. The white stuff and the blood was sticky and hard to get off. He frowned, then started trying to wipe the baby off.

It-no, _he_-didn't like that, and wriggled and made horrible faces. He gasped, then let out a louder cry. The baby was starting to turn pink, now, and Niko wiped off the tiny face. The baby opened his eyes, and they were a startling pale blueish shade. Niko blinked, then looked up at Sophia.

"What's his name?"

Sophia grunted. "Caliban."

Niko frowned, and repeated that to himself softly a few times, wrapping his tongue around the name. "What-?"

"I don't care what you do with it. Get lost. I need a drink."

That was a clear dismissal and better than he usually got. After a puzzled moment, Niko wrapped Caliban up in the towel and awkwardly carried the baby out of the bathroom. Caliban had stopped crying for a few moments and when Niko glanced down, there were wide clear eyes looking up at him from a face stained with birth. Niko stood in the kitchen a moment. What did he do with a baby? Take care of it, but how?

Their neighbor had a lot of kids. Niko played with them sometimes. She would probably know what to do. Niko nodded, hefted his new burden, and headed for the door. It was tricky to get down the steps, but he didn't drop Caliban, and it didn't take long to cross the yard. He kicked at the neighbor's door until it opened. Cindy, the little girl Niko's age, stared at him, sucking her thumb, and her eyes got bigger when she saw what Niko was carrying.

"Ma! Ma! Niko's got a stork baby! Did you lose one?" Cindy demanded, turning and running inside, her stained dress fluttering. Niko edged inside, and was met by two of the older kids. They made startled exclamations, and one poked the towel. Niko scowled, then bared his teeth. The others laughed and backed off.

Their mother came up, a baby in her arms, and looked at Niko. Her eyes widened, but her face took on a tired expression. "Sophia's, huh? Is she okay?"

Niko nodded. "She gave him to me. His name's Caliban."He hesitated, then added, "I don't know what to do with him."

The woman frowned. "Gave him to you."

"Uh-huh. She doesn't want him."Niko had picked up that much already, from before the birth and now. "Um, you know how to take care of babies, can you teach me?"Niko didn't really know anything, aside from a few scattered facts, and there wasn't anything in their trailer even related to baby care.

With a sigh, the woman shook her head, but beckoned him in. Niko smiled, glad he'd found someone to help him, and came inside, carrying Caliban carefully, protectively.

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><p>Niko remembers that first moment of pride, and a smile ghosts over his lips. The woman had taught him just enough, and it had been a rare moment of kindness in their lives. It hadn't been an easy journey, but now, well. Niko opens his eyes and instantly spots Cal, draped across the battered couch, sneaking in a few moments of reading...actual monster-identification reading, a tiny research streak that Cal is trying to slip in while he thinks Niko isn't looking. Niko closes his eyes, allowing the farce to continue, though he's through meditating for now.<p>

He knows Cal does his own research from time to time (Niko wouldn't stand for it otherwise) but Cal prefers to uphold his image as the illiterate gun-slinging mercenary. Niko lets him; after all, one must know when to allow a little brother some pride. Cal probably knows Niko knows, or suspects, but he'll pretend Niko didn't suggest the book and Niko pretends he doesn't see Cal reading, and all is well with the world.

For the moment.

Niko knows peace does not last forever.

But for now...it is enough.


	3. Savage

**A/N: **I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her.

This was a writing sample for the panfandom RPG Kannagara, where I play Niko.

_http:/ /www. niko-wafer. livejournal. com_

Also, check out _http:/ /ymris. deviantart. com_ for a little Niko fanart.

...this story has had about 31 visitors per chapter but only six reviews total. :| I think FFdotnet makes up stats - that really just can't be right.

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><p>Niko swung the blade in hand and felt confidence in the weight of the weapon. He gripped the handle with gloved hands and swung again. Flesh parted and the monster screamed. Niko reversed the sweep of the battle-axe and took off the creature's head. He stepped sideways, ducked raking claws, and plunged again into the dimly-lit fray. A tiny lift of his upper lip bared his teeth a fraction, the only outward indication to the savage delight within. Fierce pride in his own skill fueled the surge of raw triumph as he ducked low and lashed out with a kick, breaking a kneecap. He rose with a powerful swinging surge, severing another's arm at the shoulder - the pure physical energy and resistance provided its own unique spice of pleasure and Niko's tiny grin twitched a fraction wider.<p>

Revenants, monsters that looked human but preyed on humans. There was a sense of righteous judgement in clearing out this nest; glory in the fight now, have no fear of holding back. Revenants were slow, hardly worth breaking stride for on their own, but a nest of nearly twenty all converging on him at once made it a little more...tricky. He wouldn't say challenging, because in all honesty, it wasn't.

A challenge was something he had to scramble for, strain to reach. Challenging was his own practise routine, constantly pushing his limits, striving relentlessly for perfection.

This was...playtime.

Niko swung the axe, severed another head. The only way to kill a revenant was to destroy their brains or spines - it added to the trickiness and Niko tended to use it as a means of practising precision. He dropped low, boots scuffing on concrete as he kicked a revenant in the ankles, swung the axe in a foreshortened upward sweep that gutted one monster and tangled in the arms of another. With a yank, Niko brought the revenant down and swept the axe sideways, taking yet another's legs off at the knees. Niko rose again to his full height, grey duster flaring as he turned, bringing the axe around with all his momentum behind it and cleaving a revenant's face in two. There was really so little finesse required with an axe; it took a particular skill but a double-bladed battle-axe was a messy weapon. Strength and enough room to move, it was devastating. Perfect for this brutal brawl. Niko ducked another set of claws.

It was almost too soon when the last revenant fell. Niko shook his head with faint disappointment, long braid slapping heavily at his hips, then moved to finish off the few still wriggling - he'd removed limbs with abandon, after all. At last he stood among the fallen, the lone living creature in the narrow battlefield of a dark alley that reeked of rotting flesh...revenant and human alike. Niko felt only a distant sorrow for the victims, and no more; no amount of wishing would bring back the dead. There could be justice, in killing the killer, but no bringing back, no replacing what was gone.

Justice to justify the thrill still burning through him, the powerful heady sense of being _alive_. Alive among the dead, victorious over the fallen. A job well done, and Niko allowed himself a small smile in truth, glorying in the savage joy.

He took a moment to kneel, balancing the battle-axe across his knee as he wiped the blade down with a cloth from his pocket. Blood would corrode the metal that much faster, and it was incredibly difficult to find blades of good quality these days. So few were made to stand up to a good round of monster-slaying, he thought to himself with wry regret. The cleaning ritual was calming, banking the fierce emotions into a quiet hum of satisfaction. Niko wiped his face clean of blood and sweat, tucked the black-blood-stained cloth into a pocket, and stood again. He walked down the alley, booted feet sure even in the darkness. He left behind the carnage, knowing other predators would clean the wreckage - this was Kin territory, and the werewolves would not abide unwanted attention drawn by so many human-looking corpses. (Or refuse a free meal.)

As he replaced his battle-axe into the cello case he'd left around the corner previously, Niko wondered if his brother was off his shift at the bar yet. They had a job to take; someone Promise knew had a small garden gnome infestation they wanted eliminated...


	4. Catcall

**A/N: **I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her.

_At the end of Roadkill, how were Robin and Salome reunited?_

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><p>"I am <em>not <em>calling that damn cat!" I spat. "She was the one who fucking left!"

"We go nowhere until I find Salome," Robin declared.

"I am _not_-!" I started to say again. Niko's hand to the back of my head interrupted me.

"Call the damn cat so we can leave," he said, voice tight but tired. Nik didn't swear often, but after the day we'd just had... There were lines bracketing his mouth. He had just seen me almost-die, too. He looked tired, exasperated, and ready to go home.

Hell, I didn't blame him, I was ready to go home too. But Goodfellow didn't want to leave his damn dead cat, never mind the fact she'd skipped out on her own. She could probably make it back to New York on her own, car surfing all the way. We'd be driving, again, but without Rafferty and Catcher the car would be roomier. And smell less of kibble breath. Delilah and the other wolves had already booked it, and we'd gotten all the way to the car before Goodfellow had brought up Salome. Me, I could care less. She'd split, she could lose her ride.

Except Goodfellow wasn't leaving without his mummified menace.

"She's probably not in the park," Niko sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his long nose. "Most likely she's somewhere down the road. Get in, Robin, and we'll drive down to look for her."

Robin thought about it, then nodded and got in. I slouched down in the front seat, rubbing at the hole in my bloody shirt. Singed bullet-hole. Getting shot in the lung _sucked_. But it didn't even ache, thanks to Rafferty. Niko didn't say anything about my slouch, but he reached over and grabbed the seatbelt. I grabbed it back and buckled it myself before he could strangle me with it. He glanced at me and his lips twitched down.

"Hey, Cyrano, sure we can't just leave her?" I muttered, staring out the window. Sitting down felt nice, even if my shirt was drying to my skin with the blood.

"Robin seems attached, for reasons unknown," he answered back, but quietly. He sighed, and looked a little less tired. Don't ask me how he did it.

Despite my opinions, we stopped five miles out to call Salome. And again seven miles out. And again ten miles out. It was dark and the side of the road was rough and I damn near cracked my skull open tripping over a roadkill pair of sneakers. I was tired and cranky and _so_ not in the mood for this bullshit. I wanted to lie down and sleep for a week. But Niko was listening to Robin who was calling Salome, and so I had to be out there calling the damn cat too. Niko wouldn't let me stay in the car and sleep. I tried. He just gave me a look that meant in a minute he would help me out of the car via a boot up the ass. So I got out and stalked around in the dark under the trees.

"Here kitty, kitty, fucking hellcat." I stopped and looked around. All I could really smell was my blood and the forest, green here and alive. "Stupid hairless excuse for a-YAH!"

Something had just dropped out of the tree onto my_ head_. I wrenched at it, smelled Salome's cinnamon-like scent, and got my hand laid open and my leather jacket slashed as she launched herself off my head.

"_Fucking_ cat!" My hand was bleeding everywhere, and I heard Salome yowl. I drew my Glock and came storming out from under the trees. I was going to give that dead excuse for a feline some new ventilation in her hollow skull.

Niko caught my wrist - the one with the gun - as I spotted Robin holding the mummified cat over his shoulder. "Mmm. We should clean that," he declared, calmly, eying my hand. "Goodfellow can sit in the back with Salome while we do."

Robin protested but Niko got his way. There were also Twinkies in the glove-box, and I ate a few one-handed while Niko cleaned and bandaged my left hand. Then,_ then_ we were ready to go home.

About fucking time.

At least I had the front seat all to myself and Niko.


	5. Overrated

****A/N: ****I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her. I do not own the song lyrics framing this piece.

I guess I'm not as good at writing Cal, huh? Last time ya'll didn't say a lot. :|

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><p><em>Meeting someone at the bar<br>Where loose ends still have uses  
>It's complicated (This time I think it could be)<br>Triangulated (It could be just what we need)  
>So what you say we give it up and walk away<br>We're overrated, anyway..._

-"Loose Ends," Imogen Heap

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><p>He serves drinks at the bar. Grey eyes sharp and hard, scowl dark and fierce. A predator: snap wrong and he'll eat you. Or he might eat you for the fun; he's bored and it shows. Restless, repetitive motions. Wiping the bar down, leaning on it with his elbows, touching the butt of the guns nestled under either arm in shoulder holsters. The hilt of the knife at his belt. It's in the way he pulls the holder from his hair, scrapes it back afresh and snaps the elastic back in. A long hank of hair keeps sliding free, dusting the pale jaw, getting stuck to his lips when he sneers, talks, turns to get a new drink. Pale strong hands quick, calloused and deft. He knows his job well.<p>

It is a good job. Better paying and less shady than most. A fine one for someone who grew up on the underside of society, fighting for the scraps of life.

And he fits in at the bar, more than I ever will.

He and his non-human half. Cal and his heritage. He slides in and they stare at him, but in recognition of a predator. The foolish challenge him; the smarter stand their distance.

I do not want him to be treated differently...but Cal does. I can see it, how he measures the distance. How comfortable he is. At ease. The lazy slouch to his spine; in the Ninth Circle he has his place and enjoys it.

That slouch vanishes and he tries to look industrious when Ishiah appears - it's good for him.

That slouch also vanishes when I walk in, but for different reasons; he turns with head lifted, that tiny jerk of the chin that means he smelled me before he saw me. He tosses me a little grin, pleased I'm here, but puzzled too. I don't usually show up in the bar.

I dust the barstool off before I sit on it, making sure it's both dry and free of crumbs. Cal finishes serving a dark-skinned werewolf before he saunters my way, bringing with him the cloth he uses to clean the bar. He gives the shiny surface a few swipes, grey eyes amused. Teasing me about my disdain for dirtiness. I let him, and nod when he asks if I want tea.

Brewing it takes a few minutes, and now his attention is on me. No more bored fidgets, just curious glances over his shoulder. He comes back, setting the cup down softly, attentive. His eyebrows twitch upwards. _Tell me already, what is it?_

"Job?"

"Job."I nod, watch him consider it. "Extermination. We'll leave when you get off shift."

A few years ago, he might have said _now_; instead he nods. "Right. What are we - aw shit, be right back."He turns and heads down the bar, glaring at the chupacubra standing there.

I cup my hands around the steaming tea-cup, focusing on the scent of good tea. It blocks out a little of the bite of alcohol, the nose-stinging scent of the bar. It smells like any other bar to me; alcohol and stale urine and the occasional bitterness of vomit. There's a musky whiff of werewolf, the peculiar watery tang of the vodyanoi in the corner.

I wonder how Cal smells it; I'll never know. His heightened sense of smell was something I'd noticed from a young age. Try hiding candy from a three-year-old who can _scent_ it in the cabinet. I watch him moving again, serving drinks, biting off sharp replies to the customers.

No longer bored, but focused; no more pleasant, but some of the danger is gone.

Back down the bar he comes, a path he'll walk for the rest of the night, back and forth and never minding enough to stop despite his inherent laziness. He has never been very good at waiting or being patient. "What are we exterminating?"

"Brownies."

A blink, then grey eyes narrow and he smiles all sharp and darkly amused. "Gee, Cyrano, I didn't know you were so against dessert."I let him have his laugh, then raise en eyebrow. He shakes his head against the silent reprimand. "I thought those were the helpful fairies."

"Very good. Legend classifies them as a type of hob, however, closely related to goblins; also helpful, until offended."I sip my tea. Fragrant, a delicate flavor, very calming. Cal brings it to the bar just for me, as I well know, but that was his own idea, and not mine. Sometimes he surprises me.

"Aw, hell. Lemme guess, whoever ticked them off wants us to deal with it."Cal scowls again. "Great. At least they're small?"he questions, trusting I'll have the answer.

I do. I may not have all the answers to who he is or what he'll become, but I have the ones he needs; the only one I'll ever need. He is my little brother (no matter what) and I will do everything in my power for him.

"Almost every folk tale agrees they are small, only three feet at the most."I pause, let him consider that. "But they are also fast and very strong for their size."I have never encountered a brownie, hob, goblin, urisk, kobold, or other household spirit yet. That did not mean I knew nothing; Promise had not had much more information than I had been able to dig up, but she had been helpful in weeding out the complete falsities.

Cal groans. "Great. Can't wait."He catches sight of a pair of lamias at the other end of the counter, and heads that way again.

Yet despite his words, the heavy dismay, he is looking forward to the job. I can read it in him, the line of his shoulders, the lift of his head, the spark in his eyes. No longer bored. He is ready, steady again.

I wonder, sometimes, seeing it, how much is his own nature, and how much of that is Auphe.

But I know that in the end, it doesn't matter.

He's my little brother, and that is the sum of everything else he is.

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><p><em>We all have something that digs at us<br>At least we dig eachother  
>So when weakness turns my ego up<br>I know you'll count on the me from yesterday  
>If I turn into another<em>

-"Dig," Incubus


	6. Heavy Hearts

**A/N: **I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her. I do not own the song lyrics used to frame this piece.

Strike-throughs were used in this piece to begin with, but FFdotnet deleted them. The parts originally in strike-throughs will thus be rendered in bracketed italics, as _**[**such.**]**_

Strike-throughs are often used in RPG-style writing: they can be used to denote dead-end thoughts, thoughts the character wishes to unthink or thoughts unconscious, actions the character considers but won't go through with, or asides from the writer that are slightly out-of-character.

I'll let you interpret them for yourselves here.

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><p><em>And it is worth the wait, all this killing time?<br>Are you strong enough to stand  
>Protecting both your heart and mine?<br>Who is the betrayer? Who 's the killer in the crowd?  
>The one who creeps in corridors and doesn't make a sound<em>

_My love has concrete feet  
>My love's an iron ball<br>Wrapped around your ankles  
>Over the waterfall<em>

-"Heavy in your Arms," Florence + the Machine _**[**Cal song**]**_

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><p>Slap of flesh on flesh, grunts and the thud of blows. Blows blocked and traded, the rapid staccato rhythm of the fight, a breathless curse, the snap and swish of the tail end of one long braid.<p>

_**[**Violence and love wrapped together in the only way we've ever known.**]**_

Duck and dodge, Cal's breath hard through open mouth, grey eyes narrowed, fist flying in through opening. Twist of wrist, mine against his, impact bruising as his strike is knocked away and mine drives true. Fingers into flesh, nerves numbed and he falls away with a snarled curse, retreating even as I follow, a low kick at his knees. He snaps a leg up, twists and the brush of his heel against my throat is dangerous_** [**intimate**]**_.

He's getting faster, faster still.

Snap of muscles as I arch and bend, drive in again from a different angle, palm of hand against numb shoulder, and he strikes the inside of my elbow, fingers hooked for a nerve strike, just like he's been taught. The follow-up, a twist and sweeping ankle, and his back bows sharply, palms hitting the matting, and where once his body would follow, instead he lands on his feet and lunges in again, right at my back and shoulder, heel of hand thudding against my ribs. I reach back, arch my shoulder and over he goes, from fighting tense to trusting limp midthrow, and only once he leaves my hands does he come alive again, writhing to land just right.

Across the room and he rolls to his feet, lunges in low and fast. Sweat on his shirt and mine; we've been at this for hours now, measured only in bruises and blows, the ever-shifting tempo of attack-retreat-defense-offense. Back and forth, now dodge and sidestep, kick and block. He feints, I follow, knowing his true line of attack.

We know eachother as no-one else ever will, in these moments of violent intent and concentration. No-one else would know to slide in so close _**[**could ever get so close**]**_ fingers against my throat in the barest brush, bodies pressed together for a heartbeat before I throw him and down on the floor we go. He kicks and it thuds home - overbalanced and all the wrong angles and I roll. An elbow thrust down and the breath huffs from his lungs. Up and he is too, mouth wide and gasping for air, but coughing he comes in again, determined and quick.

Better and better, and I strike for his throat now.

Knuckles dust flesh and he twists - then bites down on my forearm.

Flash of pain and he lets go, knee rising to drive into my stomach. I can step back just enough to soften it, not avoid it entirely. A breathless noise of triumph, and the heel of his hand thuds against my chest, right over my heart - but softly, now, a gentle touch. I tangle my legs with his, and down we go again.

But that was a fatal hit. And we both know it.

He lands hard on top of me, bruising bones against flesh, but he's laughing too, bright and clear.

"One for me!" he declares, pulling his head up, dark hair splayed damp across face and lips, unruly as it grows out from the short cut.

"Against eight, little brother," I remind him, but I smile too. He's getting better. One day, we might be on the same level.

Not today.

Yet he's begun to fight with a style both wilder and more deadly. Fingers hooked for nerve-strikes (or like claws) and he bites more often now.

Faster, like when he gates.

But he leans on his elbows, chest-to-chest, smiling and clear grey eyes alight, proud of what he's done. What he's becoming. He'll protect himself, he'll fight to my exacting standards, and he'll survive.

And what can I do but smile back?

We'll fight together, and I'll stay one step ahead.

I'll keep protecting him, for moments like this.

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><p><em>Odyssey on odyssey, and land over land<br>Creeping and crawling like the sea over sand  
>Still I follow heartlines on your hand<br>This fantasy, this fallacy, this tumbling stone  
>Echoes of a city that's long overgrown<br>Your heart is the only place that I call home  
>Can I be returned? You can...<em>

_Just keep following the heartlines on your hand_  
>Just keep following the heartlines on your hand<br>Keep it up, I know you can  
>Just keep following the heartlines on your hand<em>  
>Because I am...<em>

-"Heartlines," by Florence + the Machine _**[**Niko song**]**_


	7. Christmas Traditions

**A/N: **I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her.

Do look up "Carol of the Bells" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and do turn it up loud. It sounds best that way. I wrote this piece listening to it. :3 Mood music. Merry Christmas!

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><p>Many families have Christmas traditions.<p>

Some are religious. Some are secular. And some are more practical than others.

Gift-wrapped guns and swords in silver paper on the breakfast table. Pancakes and fruit; grapefruit and cantaloupe, coffee and a pair of candy canes. Cal turns on the radio, puts in the cassette tape of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. He turns it up. I turn it down. It's a fight that never ends, year after year.

We eat before opening our respective presents. Cal lingers over the cantaloupe, not because he already knows what I've bought him (we always know what our presents are) but because he likes cantaloupe. The grapefruit is for me; Cal doesn't like it.

He grins when he unwraps the new gun, all but takes it apart in his inspection, and mimes shooting it, examining the sights. Little boys and their toys. His thanks is cheerful, content.

The sword for me this year is a good solid dao, a Chinese blade of excellent workmanship. I thank him, and watch him still twiddling with the gun, shifting his hands on the grip, checking the safety, the weight of it.

The candy cane he's been using to stir his coffee is now stuffed up in one cheek, half-stripped of its stripes. He crunches it absently, head nodding to the song currently playing (Carol of the Bells) and runs his fingers down the length of the handgun's barrel. His socked feet are crossed in his chair as he sits tailor-style. I haven't seen his hair so short for so long, and it reminds me of when he was far littler, enjoying toys that weren't so deadly or expensive.

But the little pleased smile, when he tosses his head to get his hair out of his eyes...that's not changed at all. A true smile just for home, just for these moments. Cal's not a cheerful person - who would be, after the life we've lived? - but he does smile on occasion, and mean it honestly.

The moment won't last long. He works at the bar tonight. Promise wants me to visit her in the evening. We'll take up our lives again and go on. That's the way it should be; life keeps going, and you go with it.

Going with it, however, doesn't mean not appreciating what has been given to you.

Particularly on Christmas.

It's a good tradition.

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><p><em>Yeah, I'm sending you a Merry New York Christmas<br>And a prayer for peace on earth within our time  
>Hear the sidewalk angels echo "Hallelujah!"<br>We understand them now more than ever_

- "New York City Christmas," by Rob Thomas


	8. Bitter Ashes

****A/N: ****I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her.

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><p>The shift and twist of dreams in sleep, walking with a hand in his. Niko knew the shape and touch: Promise beside him, her soft voice whispering through the dim images and he smiled a little. He squeezed her hand, so small in his, and felt the restrained strength in her gentle grip as she squeezed back.<p>

The hall they walked down was so familiar, and Niko recognized it with a sudden chill, Promise fading in his peripheral vision.

No, no, _no._

The apartment door ajar. Their door was _never_ left open.

He'd walked this hall before, felt this dread, and the dreaming sense of having been here before changed nothing. He rushed forward, Promise's hand lost, heart in his throat. He pushed the door wide.

Every detail so clear, the bodies _too_ real, perfect. The graceful curves of the great black cats dead, and the boneless drape of Cal as he laid on the floor, gun fallen from his hand...red red blood soaking the rug, his body all but in ribbons. Niko never remembered crossing the floor, but he knew all too well the weight of Cal's body in his arms, the limp fall of his head against Niko's arm, the grey eyes filming over in death. Cold blood smearing across his hands and shirt, cold like the hollowness in Niko's chest. The rising empty whiteness in Niko's head that soaked up the shock of grief and anger and left nothing behind, blessed emptiness for what needed to be done.

Niko's eyes rose to the doorway, and no longer was it Promise waiting for him, but her daughter Cherish.

Niko rose, Cal's blood cold over his heart, katana in hand, mala beads scattered away. No control needed, not when every reason for control lay dead on the floor, Niko's life and heart bled out and cold. Grey of gone, grey of steel ringing as Niko lunged, going toe-to-toe with the vampire woman.

With the daughter of his lover, wearing her mother's face.

With her eyes black in fury and her fangs bared, she looked less like Promise and more like the monster she was.

The monster who had murdered his brother, deceived Niko into living the nightmare long before its time had come. It wasn't anger that cracked the whiteness, not even rage, but scarlet bloodlust and the cry for death, death, _death!_ She would _die_ for what she'd done, for the blood on his hands and the hole in his heart and the life that she had shattered beyond all repair or hope. _Cal was gone_ and _she had done it! _She was good with her sword but Niko had no reason to hold back anymore. No reason to care, no reason left at all.

And when his blade transfixed her heart, Cherish's face was no longer her own, and Niko knew then what Promise would look like at the end of his blade, a butterfly on a pin, the light dying from her violet eyes at the end of all life.

The sickness of it all crashed down on him and nearly took him to his knees, leaving him with blood on his hands and the taste of madness on his tongue, bitter like ash.

And no way to fill the bleak hollow in his heart and soul.

Cal was gone.

Niko closed his eyes, and let his katana fall from his hand.

* * *

><p>Niko opened his eyes on a long indrawn breath, the dream fresh but the knowledge sure; he could hear Cal breathing in sleep, only a few feet away.<p>

Cal was _alive_ and the nightmare was old.

Niko shivered just once, and rose, reaching blindly out to take up his katana. He would sleep no more tonight.


	9. Misery

**A/N: **I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her.

School and clinicals devoured me. I did not forget ya'll - I just didn't have any time. But now, back to your regularly-scheduled updates.

* * *

><p>Cal's digestive system is second only to his immune system.<p>

He routinely eats any number of foods on the verge of spoiling or growing mold, and never shows the least amount of distress. On at least one occasion I've caught him pinching the mold off the last hot-dog bun before he eats it. Cal eats anything and everything without side-effects or upset.

I've begun to believe it goes along with his superior immune system.

I knew better, I did. But Cal had said he'd warmed up the leftovers yesterday and eaten a bite before he'd realized it was my tofu dish and not his chicken. He'd said it had tasted fine. And so it had.

It does not taste just fine _now_, at two in the morning, while I sit on the floor by the toilet and consider the fact that I should have listened to my instincts and gone out and gotten something else to eat, despite the snowstorm. Then I probably would not have come down with a distinct case of food poisoning.

Cal is still asleep, thankfully. I prefer to be miserable in my own company. Particularly when it's my fault to begin with.

The thermometer beeps. As I'd thought, a slight fever, to go along with the chills and the vomiting. My stomach twists and I push up to my knees, hands rising to push back my ponytail, elbows on the toilet seat as I go through the misery of throwing up again. This time, at least, it's little more than froth and bile, which means that my body has probably purged itself of the toxins responsible.

The sharp smell of stomach acid stings my nose but for a moment I stay leaning there, eyes closed. I'm tired and a little light-headed, either from the fever or the beginnings of dehydration. I do have a glass of water, but since the bouts of vomiting are farther apart, I may go get something a little kinder to an upset stomach.

A sudden cramp but it's only dry heaves, all the fun with none of the productive results. My throat is sore, my abdomen aches, and I am very tired of sitting on the cold bathroom tiles. At least my hair is still clean. I sit back slowly, and reach a heavy arm out to flush the toilet.

Footsteps, and instinct overrides illness. I have a short sword in hand by the time Cal appears in the bathroom doorway, looking sleepy, rumpled, and bewildered.

"Nik? What're you..." he slurs, then grimaces and puts a hand over his nose. "Yuck. Nik, are you sick?"

"No. Go back to bed." My voice is a little hoarse. Cal shakes his head, swaying a little with the motion, and pads closer on bare feet. I wonder where his socks are this time; he went to bed with them on. "Cal."

"You are sick," he says, bending to pick up the thermometer. He frowns at the last reading. "How'd you get sick?"

"The tofu. It was bad." I'm tired and my tone is short. I know it, but I want him to go back to bed, and leave me in peace. "Go back to bed."

"I'm not five anymore," he answers, and sets the thermometer on the counter. He looks down at me, then crouches down, balancing on the balls of his feet. He reaches out and lays the back of his fingers against my forehead, double-checking what the thermometer read. "Sorry...it tasted alright..."

"So it did."

"Grumpy," Cal grumbles, but without heat, and he gets back to his feet.

I can only hope he's going back to bed, but I know better. I lean back against the cabinets, wishing the edges wouldn't dig in so badly, but too tired to get up and move. Closing my eyes makes the dizziness better. Slow deep breaths. Has the worst passed? Probably...the last three times I've thrown up nothing but acid, and the cramps are dying down, too. Cal's footsteps sound on the tile. I'm taken by surprise when there's a "swuff" and a blankets drops over me. I open my eyes and blink at the folded throw. Cal sets a glass of white grape juice down by my water (sweet enough for him, healthy enough for me) and sits down heavily on the tile, shoulder-to-shoulder with me. He has with him a .20 gauge shotgun, and he lays this on the tiles gently.

"Cal..."

"Even you're not ninja enough to slaughter intruders while puking, Nik," he retorts, eyes closed, leaning back against the cabinets. He leaves a hand on the stock of the shotgun. "Drink your juice."

That last is an uncanny echo of my own tone and words. I suppose any parental figure gets to hear their child repeat the most often mentioned admonishments...but Cal does not often sound like me. He is his own person, very much so, and as well as I know him he can still surprise me. Yet that is humanity, too; we can never know someone so completely as to divine every action, their truest motives. In a way I find that comforting. It would be a hard thing to know someone that closely, and it would leave no room for trust.

And trust is so very important to have.

Cal falls asleep on my shoulder as I drink slow sips of the juice.


	10. Lemon and Vinegar

**A/N: **I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her.

For more on Cal with laundry on Wednesdays, check out my sister Samurai101's November 25 drabble on her livejournal account: http:/ /bizzylizzybee. livejournal. com/ 14906. html

It's a cute drabble. A better Cal-voice than mine by far!

* * *

><p>The apartment smelled of vinegar and lemon.<p>

Niko was cleaning, then.

I crept in, doing my best to be quiet. Sure enough, there was Niko, down on hands and knees and scrubbing the wood floor, furniture pushed aside. Heavy-duty cleaning, not just a light attack of insanity. He had already washed down the apartment once from ceiling to floor (I'm not kidding, really the ceiling), when we'd moved in, but it was still only the first week. His braid was clubbed up at the back of his neck, his sleeves rolled up, and his mala beads clicking with each swipe.

I wrinkled my nose at the sour bite of the vinegar and started heading for my room as quietly as I could.

"Pick up the towels in the bathroom, your socks in the hall, and the shirts on your floor, and take them and the basket to the hall. You're doing laundry."

I grimaced, but then, I hadn't expected to get away scot-free. Niko hadn't even looked up, but he always knew where I was. Always. I don't know how he did it.

"But I did that last Wednesday..."

"And it needs doing again today. Especially after the spoiled milk fiasco this morning. Now go." Niko sounded meditatively patient; cleaning did that to him sometimes. Rather than risk the lemon-vinegar wrath of the Mr. Clean Ninja, I went.

Lemon and vinegar. Niko never used anything chemical, either on himself or on the house. He could get up bloodstains with baking soda and hydrogen peroxide, like some mad scientist. (Now _that_ was a terrifying mental image: Niko in a lab coat with goggles and rubber gloves.)

But it wasn't just Niko being all eco-friendly and my-body-is-a-temple...he _started_ doing it when we were younger. I don't even remember what I said that time. Just something about not liking the smell after one of his clean-everything-attacks in some dingy hole-in-the-wall apartment. Cleaners really don't bother me that much; hell, if they did, I'd pass out every time we go to Promise's place. So it's not like I mind, I just made a comment and Niko took it to heart.

I'd gotten used to it, I guess. I did like the fact our clothes didn't smell like whatever girly freshener, just the kinda clean-water-non-smell they got after they'd been washed with baking soda. It made it easier to not get tracked by scent. With all the cleaning, you'd think Niko would smell like lemon and vinegar, but he didn't. He smelled like his swords, steel and oil, a little tang like green tea and that goat-milk-herb-whatever natural soap he used. Not a whiff of lemon or vinegar.

I needed to figure out how he did it, 'cause after a few days of lying on the floor at the bottom on the cleaner-clothes-pile, my socks started smelling like hard lemonade.


	11. Niko's Week

**A/N: **I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her.

A note: this is not a schedule set in stone, by any means. The muse informs me this is just an idea of how the household runs...plus or minus more grocery runs, monster attacks, and supernatural jobs.

* * *

><p><strong>1.<strong> Niko's week usually began at six AM sharp on a Monday morning. Cal didn't work in the bar Sundays, so either they ran a job or they spent time together, training or the like. This last night, however, they stayed in and watched 'Gladitor' because every once in a while a movie-night was acceptable, though Niko ate sunflower seeds and a few pieces of Cal's popcorn, thrown his way for making comments on the historical inaccuracies. Cal just wanted to watch people get hacked into pieces in peace, thus the popcorn shower.

Six AM was light in the winter, and Niko sat on the relative warmth of his bed and meditated. It was a peaceful way to start the day, quiet in the apartment reigning. It was warm in their apartment, despite the way it ran up the bills, because Cal hated being cold. Rather than fight the thermostat wars, Niko conceded the field of battle.

After meditation was a little physical activity, cramped in their new loft apartment, but Niko could still get in a decent workout. His usual solo routine involved stringing together moves from every single martial-arts style he knew into a long running pattern, without repeating an attack or move in a specific time period. It was good practise, kept him limber and able to adapt and change his fighting style to the fight, instead of relying on a few key moves of a single style.

Breakfast at seven with Cal, morning news and forecast over breakfast (either by TV or paper), shower, and on Mondays and Wednesdays these days Niko went to the local university of the borough and worked as a TA in English Literature. (He'd tried for History, but no openings.) He jogged the distance, because it was only a few miles, and depending on how he timed it he could make it in a single long shot without having to stop for traffic.

Lunch-time and Niko called home, ensuring Cal was at least semi-conscious and things were fine. He worked through lunch, came home an hour early, and dragged Cal out for a run. Cal disliked running immensely, but keeping in shape was important. He was doing better these days; his endurance and stamina were improving. Niko let Cal languish for nearly two hours after the run; then they sparred until it was time for dinner and they'd broken yet another coffee-table and one hideous green lamp Niko had picked up at a garage sale.

Monday-night dinner was always eaten together, either at home or at a fiercely-debated restaurant; afterwards Cal went to the bar to work, and Niko went to Promise's. They visited, talked business, art, and love, and Niko was home and in his own bed before midnight.

* * *

><p><strong>2.<strong> Tuesdays Niko's day started at 5 AM sharp, though the morning routine was much the same. Tuesdays, however, Niko worked afternoons at a local dojo as an assistant instructor, though the current dojo master was desperately trying to graduate him to full instructor and possibly partner in business. Niko was having none of it. He worked Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons, and no more.

On Tuesday mornings, breakfast was at six and Cal - who had generally dragged home by then - ate half-asleep over whatever Niko had fixed and stumbled off to bed. Niko would spend his time until lunch cleaning the house and getting the laundry sorted for Cal to take on Wednesday to the coin-laundromat down the street. Cal _would_ forget to pry his socks out from under the couch, look behind the toilet for his underwear, and retrieve his shirt from over the doorknobs. Thus it fell to Niko to properly corral all loose laundry of the Cal-type, lest it miss the washing-trip and ferment in its hiding places. After lunch, Niko went to the dojo, taking the subway for only part of the way and jogging the rest.

This week, he did not eat Tuesday dinner with Cal, but spent the evening with Promise, dinner complete with a little wine and a lot of loving. He did not stay the night, however, and went home making a detour to the bar to check on Cal, though he didn't go in. Just looked. Tuesday nights, Cal did not close up, and therefore was home and in bed by four.

* * *

><p><strong>3.<strong> Wednesday, 5 AM sharp. Niko went for a run instead of staying inside; a cold front was moving in and it would snow after that. Better to be outdoors before it snowed rather than after. He ate breakfast alone, and went to the university. He graded papers, researched selkies in the university library, and came home for lunch. He chivvied Cal out of bed, and they ate lunch together before Niko hustled them both out the door; he to the university again and Cal off to the laundromat. Cal went grumbling but knew his job.

Niko grocery-shopped on Wednesday, came home and put them away, and for once found Cal cleaning his guns. It was a nice try for evasion, but they went out to the park before dinner and sparred. Dinner was take-out and Niko walked Cal down to the bar. Cal was closing tonight, and after leaving Cal at the bar Niko went to Promise's.

He stayed the night.

* * *

><p><strong>4.<strong> Thursday, 4 AM sharp, and Niko was home by five. His morning routine commenced, and Cal came in by five-thirty, sporting a garish bruise on his forearm and a split lip. With more animation than was usual for the hour, Cal described the tremendous barfight, swore at his cereal every time he bumped his lip with his spoon, and staggered off to bed again.

Niko left early, did some training in the park, and followed up on some potential clients Promise had mentioned. He got back before lunch, examined the weather forecast, and got a heavier coat before he went out again to the dojo.

It was snowing when he was leaving the dojo, and Cal came by to walk him home, hunched into his coat and grumbling fiercely at the cold. Niko relented and they rode the subway, picked up pizza for dinner, and meditated before it was time for Cal to go to the bar. Cal went alone, and Niko stayed home. He got in some reading on his favorite Greek mythology book, and went to bed early.

* * *

><p><strong>5.<strong> Friday morning, 5 AM. Niko's morning routine was altered only slightly by the pixie that had taken refuge on their balcony from the snow; the fragile body was easily disposed of, and Niko spent the morning cleaning and oiling many of his swords. Cal came home at six, ate, and went to bed, but only after demonstrating his bruised arm was no longer swollen and his lip was healing up. Niko cleaned most of his blades and practised throwing knives at the remains of the coffee-table.

Niko met Promise for lunch, before he went to the dojo; the crowd at the dojo was slim and they closed early, because of the increased snow and storm. Niko used the time to investigate a lead for a client, fought off five hungry, cold, and subsequently angry revenants, and came home again. He and Cal sparred while it hailed outside, put two new holes in the drywall, and seriously bent the paper-towel-rack from the kitchen out of shape. It was clearly not meant to be used as an impromptu projectile.

Cal didn't have to go in until late, so they went out to the park and did a little hunting. The night's pickings were slim, mostly because of the weather, and Cal arrived at the bar grumpier than usual. Niko sat in the corner and had a cup of tea, mostly so he could wait until his toes warmed up again before braving the snow outside. Steel-toed boots were well and fine for protection against blows. Not so much for cold weather.

Niko went home alone and went to bed.

* * *

><p><strong>6.<strong> Saturday morning, 5 AM sharp. The usual morning routine, with more martial arts and less meditating, because it was chilly and moving made him warmer. Freezing temperatures all day was the forecast. Cal came home at six in a ridiculously foul mood because of the cold, but defrosted a little over the hot coffee Niko had waiting for him. He went almost right to bed.

Niko made a few phone-calls, made an appointment with a client who needed a certain family heirloom tracked down, and cleaned out the fridge. All leftovers - gone! With the apartment so secured from the dangers of radioactive spoiled takeout, Niko went out for a run. It was necessarily a short run; the snow-plows were still making their rounds. Niko went back home, broke out the tea and his stack of references, and started looking up enchanted pendants of Victorian English origin.

Cal managed to appear for lunch, but fell sleep again on the couch when Niko sat down with him to watch a documentary on the California gold rush. Niko let Cal's head rest against his shoulder for the duration of the program; then he got up and left Cal napping alone on the couch, curled up under a blanket.

After some rounds of martial arts, though, Cal woke up, grumbling, and after a snack they went out for a run again. They dropped by Goodfellow's for a visit, but no-one answered the door except for Salome and Spartacus. Undeterred, they went back home, and Niko called Promise to talk about their client. Promise agreed to arrange the financial details and invited them both for dinner. Niko politely declined, knowing it was a shorter walk for Cal to go to the bar from here, and went to cook dinner.

Cal left for work. Niko took a nap, and went to pick Cal up from the bar at 3 AM. They met with their client, got descriptions and the first half of their payment, and with no further complications headed home. The succubus that tried to hit on Niko met a quick end, but the human junkie that tried to pick Cal's pocket was not so fortunate; he'd live to tell the tale of broken fingers to the police, as he was so mysteriously deposited on the doorstep of their station.

* * *

><p><strong>7.<strong> Sunday morning, eight-thirty AM. Niko got up and performed his morning routine. Breakfast was at nine, but Cal got up around lunch-time and ate then, sleepy-eyed and hazy until he'd had had coffee.

They went out to the park and sparred, then went looking for the pendant they were supposed to be tracking down. Two promising leads panned out to nothing, but the third one seemed likely to deliver the goods in question.

No such luck; by sunset they still hadn't found it, but they were closer. They ate out, then headed off to another address for another lead. After the fourth dead end, they called it quits for the day and took to an abandoned building to do a little hunting. Revenants and rusalka provided plenty of excitement, fighting, and a good deal of property damage.

Back home they came and cleaned various cuts and bruises and abrasions, victorious but both with headaches from the rusalka's singing. A second dinner was made, as it was quite late by now, and they ate at the kitchen table. Niko quietly flexed his bruised knee under the table, and Cal kept admiring his skint elbow - skint halfway up his arm and raw still.

Niko cleaned his swords after they'd eaten, and he and Cal threw the foam Nerf ninja stars back and forth, Niko never moving and Cal trying to take refuge behind the arm of the couch, where he laid across the entire length on his stomach, socked feet kicking with concentration. In a moment before an attack, from the corner of his eye Niko caught Cal peering over the arm of the couch, dark hair shading clear grey eyes bright with mischief and unvoiced laughter.

An arm whipped out, and without looking, Niko caught the foam weapon between his fingers. He flicked it back and caught Cal right between the eyes. Cal yelped and dropped down again. Niko turned his head to hide his own smile and stroked his oiled cloth down the length of the broadsword spanning his knees.

He'd finish this last sword and go flip Cal off the couch. Smirking like that was just asking for retribution.

They'd both go to bed late, after ripping open a couch cushion in the subsequent brawl and cleaning it up.

* * *

><p>And Niko's week started over again on Monday morning, 6 AM sharp.<p> 


	12. Dawn

****A/N:**** I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her.

For something written in about 45 minutes, I think it turned out okay.

* * *

><p>Cal woke up with his head on Niko's knee.<p>

The heater was off, and the fan stopping was what had woken him up.

Looking up past Niko's elbow through the cracked and bug-spattered windshield, Cal realized two things. The first was that it was very dark, but dark-with-dawn-coming, not dark-of-night. The second was that Niko had been driving all night. The radio was on playing a low background of some esoteric rock-band, and Niko was chewing gum in a rhythmic manner. Niko didn't like gum, actually, but it kept him awake driving at night. Cal was surprised they hadn't stopped - they had gotten to where they had been stopping, and Niko sleeping.

Cal reached out and turned the heater back on, not so much because he was actually cold, but because the lack of warm air blowing on him was too chill. Niko glanced down at him, swapping the gum from one cheek to the other in a quick flick of tongue. His grey eyes were not bloodshot, but there were bags under his eyes. He looked far too old for nineteen, worry and tension lines on his face shaded in darkly by the faint light.

"Something wrong?" Cal croaked, voice a thin whisper. The leg under his head was only a little tense as Niko held steady on the gas.

"No," Niko answered, a quiet soothing whisper. He kept driving.

Cal listened to the hum of the tires and the steady sound of the Cadillac's engine. Change in pitch - a bridge. Cal sat up carefully, pulling his head out from under Niko's arm. The coat thrown over him slipped down as he planted a hand on the cracked leather seat, and Cal looked out the windows to a frosty morning. The wide green-brown river below was steaming softly, and there was white frost fleecing the grassy banks and hollows. Cal glanced at the signs - some southern city, bypass to Atlanta, to Florida. They passed under an overpass, and Cal caught a glimpse of a cardboard box, a man in many layered coats, spraypaint on concrete. Beer bottles on the verge and someone's lost couch cushion. Niko took the exit for the bypass. The suggested speed read thirty-five. Niko took the curve at fifty and kept going.

Dawn was creeping in, lighting the world in an eerie winter glow. Why had Niko driven all night? And were they going south for the winter? Cal eyed the traffic, the headlights, the curved streetlamps with clusters of pigeons. A dinky old town, rotting out buildings right by the highway. He rummaged in the floorboards, hair falling in a curtain around his face. Empty chip-bags and drink bottles from yesterday. He plucked a full waterbottle from the mess and uncapped it, taking a few sips. It was _cold_ and he grimaced, then offered it to Niko.

Niko took it and drank, without taking his eyes from the road. He wedged a knee up under the steering wheel and held out his hand for the cap. Cal handed it over. He supposed it should worry him when Niko did that, drove with his knee, but it didn't. Niko hadn't gotten them into a wreck yet. Cal watched him screw the cap back on and pass back the bottle. A semi-truck passed them, rumbling loudly.

"The song is 'I would walk five hundred miles,' not I would drive five hundred miles, Nik," Cal told him, still a little unnerved. The way Niko snapped the gum told him Niko was annoyed by that, but it got him an answer.

"There wasn't any place worth stopping." No place with enough people to even pretend to hide them, then. "Pick somewhere for breakfast."

Cal nodded and stretched as much as he could. There was more room without Niko in it in the back-seat (except for the floor, where there were boxes of Niko's books) but there was room without Niko in it.

Cal knew very well that Niko wasn't going to just vanish. But...it had been very, very dark last night.

Cal scanned the blue signs along the side of the road. "Um. KFC?"

The gum popped again in reply. Cal tried another. "McDonald's?"

Niko relented and took the exit. He was tired, Cal realized, too tired to argue much over the fast-food nutrition. Cal sat quietly and watched the flow of traffic. The eastern sky was turning pink. Suddenly, all the streetlights went out. Cal jumped, breath hissing in, but it meant nothing and he felt foolish for being so twitchy. Niko's sidelong glance didn't help, either, but...

It was cold. Cal turned the heater up.

Niko said nothing about that, either, but popped the gum with the scent of mint and cinnamon. They did park and go in for breakfast. Cal got to order while Niko was in the bathroom. He got coffee - it smelled really good, even if it didn't taste that good, but Cal wanted to be awake. Niko was tired. (Someone needed to watch.) Niko was not tired enough to not give the eggs, biscuits, and sausage patties a look of utter disdain...but he sat down after only wiping the chair out once and started putting strawberry jelly on his biscuit. Cal, already midway through his third breakfast sandwich, pulled his gaze away and watched the cars outside, the people behind the counter, and felt the cold chill of vulnerability down his spine. The scalding hot, strong black coffee helped a little, but what helped more was Niko's grey gaze turned carefully over Cal's shoulder, as they ate facing one another. Cal suddenly saw the pommel of a knife nosing from beneath Niko's coat, high under his arm - a long one, then something that could get them in trouble. That made him feel safer, somehow.

At first it had made him nervous, to see Niko armed like that, but now...

Niko had given him a knife, too. Was teaching him how to use it, in moves he'd learned in the dojo. Cal both did and didn't like it - what if...

Niko's boot-toe nudged his ankle, and Cal twitched all over, then carefully slowed his breathing down. He was good. He was past this (no he wasn't what if what if) and Niko was there. They were okay. (Niko had driven all night.) Cal swallowed hard and took a sip of the coffee. The bitterness stung and he held onto that, because it was here with Niko and not _elsewhere_. Niko finished picking at his food - he never seemed to eat much these days - and nodded.

They left, and kept moving. Cal turned the heater on high. Niko said not a word, but as Cal stared blindly out the window at the passing scenery, dead bare trees like black claws raking the sky, Niko reached out and laid his hand on the back of Cal's neck. The touch was warm, human, _present_ and some of the tension left him, thoughts settling more easily. They were moving. Niko would keep him safe.

Cal just had to believe that, and he'd be alright.

They drove on to meet the sunrise.


	13. Calculations

****A/N:**** I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her.

An attempt at a different POV. Tell me what ya'll think, please!

* * *

><p>The apartment was quiet.<p>

In the living room was the low hum of the television, as Cal watched some action movie whose soundtrack was frequently punctuated by gunfire. In the kitchen, there was the rustle of paper and skritch of pencil as Niko and Promise totaled accounts: expenses, loses, and the monster-given paycheck. The current bonus of solid silver Spanish doubloons was a bit hard to liquify or calculate proper value - but the crusty old man with seaweed in his beard had at least paid them for their adventures with the multi-armed squid-like creature living in his swimming pool. Niko would have called it a kraken, only it had been so small. Barely the size of a semi truck.

Promise had the task of translating the silver's value into something the Leandros brothers could more easily calculate and use.

She looked up when Niko stopped tapping at his calculator with a tiny noise of annoyance. He was staring at the device with narrowed eyes, and the tension around his lips suggested the thought of a frown. The display was blank and Promise surmised quickly what the problem was.

"Did the battery die?"

"Yes." Niko's answer was short. He was annoyed. He didn't exactly need the calculator, but it made things go faster and Niko was able to easily double-check the numbers. He tapped his pencil twice against the papers. "Cal."

No answer.

Niko waited a beat, then pitched his voice only a fraction louder. "Cal."

"What?" came the grumpy growl. From where she sat, Promise could only see the top of Cal's head and one socked foot hung over the arm of the couch.

"Eight thousand six hundred eighty-seven point seventy five minus two thousand seven hundred twenty-six point fifty."

"What? Uh, five thousand nine hundred sixty-one point twenty-five." Cal's answer was quite fast. Promise's eyebrows rose.

"Divided by four." Niko wrote quickly, his neat rounded numbers filling the page in miniscule rows.

"Dammit, Nik, couldn't you give it to me all in one piece? One thousand four hundred ninety point thirty-one. Rounded." Cal shifted on the couch, one foot swinging down onto the floor.

"I needed both answers," Niko told him, serenely, still writing.

"I hadn't realized Cal was such a mathematician," Promise remarked after a moment of silence, impressed not by the mental calculations, but by the speed. Cal had hardly needed to think before he'd tossed the correct numbers back to Niko.

Niko glanced up, and there was a little smile playing around the corners of his mouth, amusement in his grey eyes. "When he can be bothered. He does fractions as well. Cal. Five-sixteenths times three-fifths, and divided overall by two-thirds."

"Now you're just being sadistic, Cyrano," Cal retorted, rolling over on the couch, so that now the top half of his face was visible over the arm-rest of the couch, socked feet kicking up into the air. "Nine over thirty-two."

That was indeed remarkable. Almost eerie. Promise could calculate that fast herself, but she was a vampire, and all her reflexes were superior. Niko, however, had a touch of pride in his eyes, along with the warmth that only Cal could bring out of him. Promise realized he was hoping for her approval - and so was Cal, grey eyes flicking from Niko's face to hers in that particularly masculine question: _'Did you see? Did I impress you?'_

So Promise smiled, and lightly clapped her hands. "I'm very impressed, Caliban."

She thought she saw the brief flash of a smile, in the way Cal's cheek moved, the way his eyes got brighter, but he promptly rolled over again on the couch to return to his movie-watching.

Niko, on the other hand, still had the idea of a smile lifting the corners of his lips, and he bent over his work again, thick blonde braid sliding over his shoulder to dangle against his thigh. Promise watched him, and wondered at how their impoverished upbringing had made them both so very hungry for approval. They hid it well; in a way all they needed was eachother, feeding off one another's love and strength. But it still came through, in the little things, the more time she spent around them. So young, and broken in ways only one human could break another - and yet so strong, too, determined and vibrant. In that intense mortal flame of living, Cal was more human than monster. He lacked the distance, the dispassion...but Promised wondered if he was more fundamentally Auphe than human. If his math trick was more than just good teaching from Niko, and more related to the fact that a monster's brain just worked faster than a human's.

"Cal."

"Whaaaat?" the growl this time was exasperated.

"There's a new bag of Doritos in the cabinet by the fridge on the top shelf." Niko never looked up from his careful third go-through of all the columns he'd worked over tonight.

Cal made a small pleased noise and rolled off the couch to land on all fours, socked feet drawn up under him. He shot to his feet and padded into the kitchen. Promise watched with amusement as Cal opened the cabinet, and found the chips very much out of his reach. He scowled up at the chips, then at the back of Niko's head. He grasped the edge of the counter, hiked a leg up, and with a heave stood up on the counter. His head barely brushed the ceiling, and he fished in the cabinet to retrieve the coveted bag of chips. Prize in hand, he made an aborted motion, then looked at Niko. He crouched and stepped down, quietly. Leaving the cabinet door open, he headed back to the couch, pulling the bag open noisily and crunching loudly as he went.

Promise watched him go. She didn't know if she was just _noticing_ it more, or if it was happening more, but Cal seemed to be moving less human-like. More fluid. Predatory. The aborted beginning of jumping off the counter, the ease in which he'd stepped down, balancing his weight...she didn't think he'd been so graceful when she'd first met him. Granted, in that time he had grown and fleshed out, going from still-growing youth to a man.

She couldn't help but wonder if there were other things he'd grown into. Such a dark heritage, a legacy of violence and death. Even Niko, so blind in his love and loyalty, admitted it was there. His faith in Cal surpassed hers. She was not so entirely certain Cal was in control of the Auphe within. Eating chips on the couch, he looked no more dangerous than any other young man.

Though, neither did Niko, absently tapping the eraser of his pencil against the end of his Roman nose as he surveyed his calculations one last time. Then he set the pencil down, sighed, and in a fluid motion stretched his arms over his head. He arched his back and let it pull his head back, eyes shut in the ripple of movement. For a moment only he was vulnerable, and Promise knew how much that moment meant.

Then his eyes opened, his muscled arms swung down, and he was ready again. He lived his life in a fine state coiled energy, forever on the verge of action. It was a marvelous thing to behold, and it had fascinated Promise from the first. The tension and energy that charged him like electricity were always there, and sometimes very nearly a physical thing when he was on the move. Niko was no ordinary human, and Promise in her long life had only met a few men like him. He had a little less charisma than some, a more stubborn and black-and-white view than most, but he was a born leader. Promise had seen men like him lead battles and overthrow rulers, draw followers and rule crowds. And many, like him, had not truly had ambition for grandeur or ruling, only a commitment to truth and honor and justice.

In an older, wilder time, he would have been great.

In these tame days, he was silent, unnoticed.

He caught her watching, and there was warmth in his grey eyes, affection softening his chiseled features.

She had no reason to linger, now that their task was done. Niko was not a man for small-talk and she was not a woman for trivial chatter. She knew on Mondays the brothers ate dinner together, and she did not want to intrude upon such a ritual. Niko made time for her alone, and she was not so selfish as to demand more. Niko walked her to the door, ever the gentleman.

There in the relative privacy of the entryway, he put his arms around her from behind, pulling her close. Promise smiled, and closed her eyes, leaning back against his solid strength. His heartbeat tapped against her back, and she could sense, feel, smell, almost taste the _life_ in him. He was so young, so very alive, in his prime. Strength and glory were yet his, and the idea of immortality that the young and healthy embodied. His cheek pressed against her hair, his breath tickling warm over her cheek. He held her, one palm spread over her arm, the other settled against the curve of her hip.

And he was content to hold her, asking nothing more. Promised mused again how very hungry for affection, approval, his upbringing had made him. Almost as if he were afraid to ask for too much when it was given. So often he was content to simply be with her, in silence and warmth of body.

Promise tipped her head up, slowly, and pressed a kiss the the faint stubble of his jaw, rough against her lips. Niko drew in a deeper breath, gently tipped his head to her. The art of kissing someone standing behind you was tricky at best, but when Promise tried to turn his arms tightened around her. She relaxed back, and breathed out through parted lips. Niko kissed her slowly, tenderly, and almost chastely. Light and delicate, savoring, though Promise knew well the hunger he was capable of.

Control, both in his embrace and in his kisses. Control in his life, as if it could hide or make up for what he lacked. Control that reigned almost perfectly over the passion. Niko lived life in absolutes, never in half-measures or shades of grey, and though Promise had seen the energy, the strength of will, she had been surprised by the intensity and fire of Niko's emotions. His control was not just discipline from fighting. In fact, Promise suspected Niko's control had begun far, far earlier in life, a natural consequence of such a vibrant, violent spirit. Control to keep away the pain that came from giving everything, feeling so deeply.

Promise hoped that would never fade.

She knew one day he would - he was mortal, human, destined to die. But she hoped that he would keep his spirit until the end.


	14. Salvation for the Damned

****A/N:**** I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her. I do not own the song-lyrics I used for mood setting.

Also, I am not Catholic, I'm Protestant. Please, any Catholics out there, forgive me for any errors in theology or representation of the clergy.

Spell-check tries to tell me narthex is not a word. :|

* = See note at bottom

Part 1 of 2, but can stand alone.

* * *

><p>At night they will go walking<br>Till the breaking of the day  
>The morning is for sleeping<br>Through the dark streets they go searching  
>To see God in their own way<br>Save the nighttime for your weeping, your weeping

God is in the houses, and God is in my head  
>And all the cemeteries of London<br>I saw God come in my garden, but I don't know what He said  
>'Cause my heart it wasn't open, not open...<br>_-"Cemeteries of London," by Coldplay_

* * *

><p>The tiles whispered back an echo of his his bootsoles and Niko stepped into the narthex of the church.<p>

The heavy wooden door slipped ponderously shut behind him, with a click and a thud. It echoed far more loudly than his boots had. Niko glanced at the holy water font, and passed it by, stepping into the nave of the church itself. Row upon row of carved wooden pews ran down to the altar, and the filtered opalescent light of sunshine through stained-glass windows gleamed brightly; the scent of candle-wax and incense filled the hushed silence of the cathedral, holy and sacred.

Rather, Niko thought, the hushed silence of an empty building. Niko's gaze glanced over the wood carvings, the stained glass depicting the saints and the Virgin Mary, and settled on the figure in black kneeling at the altar rail. Black robes - his contact, then was a priest, or someone remarkably odd. Niko hesitated only for a fraction of a moment, then walked down the aisle. He made no sound, but as he approached, the figure stood, and crossed itself, with a low "Amen." It turned, and the man clasped his hands before him, waiting for Niko. He was indeed wearing the vestments of a priest - the long black robes, an embroidered red stole, the white collar. He held in his hands a rosary. His hair was brown and neatly trimmed, and his eyes were dark enough to be indeterminate in colour.

"So you have arrived. Bless you, my son, for coming," the man said, in a pleasant tenor.

Niko raised an eyebrow. "I am not your son," he demurred. "What need does a priest have for monster extermination?"

"A church is not exempt from worldly problems," the man answered, "And you came highly recommended by a...mutual friend." He smiled, and Niko saw the fangs immediately. A vampire priest. That was...unexpected, somehow. The vampire spoke again. "You may call me Father Callaghan."

Niko raised an eyebrow, the name sparking in memory. "Stephen King?" he queried, lightly.*

Father Callaghan chuckled. "No, but the irony does not escape me."

Niko nodded. "What is your problem? Our...mutual friend was not very specific." Which was not unusual, but Promise tended to gather as many details as possible before passing the job on.

"Yes. Let us talk business somewhere less holy. Please follow me." Father Callaghan turned and began to walk. Niko followed him across the sanctuary and through a smaller door near the back. "Rumors of evil spirits have disturbed my flock. The problem itself is not spiritual in nature, but it is one that I am hesitant to deal with personally. Taking a life goes against my beliefs and my vows as a priest."

"I was not aware priests vowed not to kill," Niko remarked, though he knew very little about religious vows in general. He did not believe in any one religion, nor in any god.

"The Scriptures say it is wrong to kill. I have taken a vow of obedience, and to go against the teachings of Our Lord goes against such a vow." Father Callaghan led the way along a short hall, a very ordinary hall with bad industrial carpet, dented and smudged sheetrock walls, and a crookedly-hung velvet portrait of the Christ, all illuminated by cheap fluorescents. Niko noted the myriad of dirty handprints at child-height and decided the closed door to the right probably led to church offices or some sort of meeting hall.

They took the door at the end of the hall, and it led into the priest's study. A small sparse room, with no windows, only bookshelves and the same fluorescent lights. There was an arrowhead vine creeping off the edge of the heavy wooden desk. "Thus, I would prefer not to deal with this problem myself. Please, have a seat, Mr. Leandros."

"Implying that if I refuse, you will go against your vows and kill," Niko mused, as he took a seat in the leather chair in front of the priest's desk. He was intrigued by the priest who was a vampire. He wondered how many of the church's congregation were inhuman as well, if any.

"The world is not absolute, as much as we would love for it to be so." Father Callaghan laid his rosary across the papers on the desk. Between the bookshelves in the tiny study, the crucified Christ watched them from high on the wall. "Violence, death, need and evil all are everyday realities. In a perfect world, as a perfect being, no, I would not kill. As an imperfect being in a broken world, yes, I will, in order to protect my flock."

"That sounds like justification, Father Callaghan." The title felt stiff in his mouth, unfamiliar.

The priest smiled, the faintest hint of fangs. "I suppose it does. Tell me, Mr. Leandros, what do you believe about killing?"

Niko was a bit surprised at the agreement and the question. He had expected a little more preaching. "It is a necessary evil." He folded his hands together, sitting straight in the chair. "And a means of paying the rent."

"A very mercenary answer, and yet philosophical." Father Callaghan nodded. "You are a very interesting young man. You know of Saint Michael's Cemetery, Mr. Leandros? It is not far from here."

Niko considered the name. "I believe so. It is an old cemetery."

"Yes. No-one is interred in it these days. Something else has taken up residence among the remains, however."

"Revenants?" Niko doubted it. Even a vampire reluctant to kill could take care of revenants.

"Some, but the main problem is in fact a _bean-sidhe_." Niko's eyebrows rose as he translated the sudden jump to Gaelic. "I see you understand. I will pay you the full amount in advance." Father Callaghan leaned back in his chair.

"It is dangerous, then." Of course. Niko began racking his mind for all the banshee myths he knew...and remembered Darkling, and Cal. His eyes narrowed and he tensed, before he could take a breath and smooth away the unpleasant memory. Darkling was dead. Cal was alive. It was enough.

"Yes and no. She would fight me, and to the death. You, my son, perhaps not." Father Callaghan shrugged, an oddly human gesture. "If she does not fight, she must merely move, and I will provide you an address to give her. She herself rarely preys on humans."

"Rarely," Niko repeated, grimly.

"Rarely." Father Callaghan nodded. "In cases of self-defense."

That was...reasonable, but Niko wasn't sure he was getting all the information. It seemed that Father Callaghan was giving him only the facts that framed the situation into what the priest wanted him to see. Niko would need to double-check the information, and speak with Promise. Perhaps Goodfellow might know something, but that was not certain. Niko nodded slowly nonetheless.

"Our usual requirements are merely half in advance," he informed the priest.

"I am aware." Father Callaghan smiled a little. "But I have faith."

"In someone you've just met?" Niko queried, raising a pale eyebrow.

"In someone I have a good report about," Father Callaghan parried. "And from what I have seen you will do very well." He smiled, a very pleasant and almost human smile that did not show his fangs. "So you will take the job?"

"We will," Niko agreed, despite his reservations about the priest. "Is there a time limit?"

"No. But I would prefer this was taken care of as soon as possible." Father Callaghan leaned forward and caught up a pen. In a flowing copperplate hand he wrote out an address on a small notepad. He tore this free and held it out to Niko between two extended fingers. "If she does not choose to fight, this is the address to give her. I will have the funds passed through our mutual friend by tonight."

Niko took the paper, folded it, and slipped it into the breast pocket of his duster. The address was not of another cemetery, but a street Niko did not immediately recognize. He would look it up this afternoon. "Thank you."

"No, thank you." With another almost human smile, Father Callaghan rose to his feet. Niko did as well. Their business was over - there was no reason to linger. But the next words from the priest made Niko pause, and look back to meet dark eyes with iron-grey. "Mr. Leandros, tell me...do you believe in God?"

"I do not," Niko answered, after a moment of thought.

"Not at all? I see." Father Callaghan touched the rosary on the desk, a fingertip tracing over the silver crucifix.

"Perhaps," Niko allowed, "there is a god. But if there is, I do not believe he cares about what happens to people." There was too much suffering and death. Too much that was unfair and outright wrong. If there was a god, he had never cared about Cal or Niko...and thus Niko did not care about him.

Father Callaghan nodded, slowly, contemplatively. He did not start spouting arguments or theology, and Niko's opinion of him rose marginally. "Then...what would you die for in this world?"

Niko's hesitation was only at the oddness of the question. His answer was already known to him. "For my brother." For Cal alone.

Father Callaghan nodded a very little, and his face was solemn...and very old. Niko wondered how old this vampire was, knowing Promise and meeting Niko's gaze with eyes like deep wells, shadowed and seeming bottomless. "Then he is what you live for, as well."

"Yes." Why the sudden questions, the interest? Niko, already wary, shifted his hand a fraction and felt the reassuring weight of steel against his palm. He had no stake in his pockets, but removing the head would do just as well, if it came to that.

"You life, your death, your salvation, your damnation." The vampire priest shook his head a little, and his voice was quiet. "Your Christ and your Judas. Go in peace, Mr. Leandros, and I pray to God you will find grace in your short mortal life."

Puzzled, insulted, taken aback, Niko stared at the vampire for a long moment, and felt the weight of those old, old eyes.

And in the end, he said nothing in reply; merely turned and left, Father Callaghan's last words echoing inside his head as he walked down the short spare hall.

He knew enough of the Bible to understand the references. Christ, who saved, and Judas, who betrayed. God and mortal man. Life and death. Salvation and sin. Human and Auphe. A paradox, a contradiction...and the truth as bittersweet as love. Cal was Niko's purpose in life, his definition, and yet in the end... He would probably become Niko's death, either by his hands or his life. Niko paused in the middle of the sanctuary, poised in the center of the rose window's rainbow fall of light, heart touched by the cold realization of things he tried not to think about. He looked up at the pattern in the stained glass, at the Lamb who was slain, and closed his eyes in quiet denial. They would not die, not yet, and even if he did Niko knew this was not a path he could abandon. He could never leave Cal, could never stop protecting him.

Niko opened his eyes. There were no prayers here. He needed none.

Only the heat of his own conviction to burn away the fears and doubts; his place was beside Cal, and that was all he had ever needed.

Soul steeled with this knowledge, held against Father Callaghan's words like a blade to defend (a holy relic against the darkness), Niko turned and left the cathedral, the whisper of his footsteps echoing through the sanctuary like the susurration of heresies.

* * *

><p>*Father Callahan is, in <span>'Salem's Lot<span> by Stephen King, the Catholic priest who fights the master vampire and loses his faith. This was actually completely unintentional on my part - I just wanted an old-sounding Irish name and that was the first that came to mind.


	15. Song for the Dead

****A/N:**** I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her. I do not own the song-lyrics I used for the playlist to write this chapter.

Part 2 of 2. This piece can be read as a direct sequel to "Salvation for the Damned," in the fact that the job comes from that chapter. However, the religious symbolism does not carry over, and the tone is not the same.

Also, if you guys have an idea you want to see, don't be afraid to prompt me! I enjoy the challenge to the muses! Give me a holler and I'll see what we come up with. Crack and serious prompts are both perfectly doable. :3

* * *

><p><strong>Playlist:<strong> "Paradise," Coldplay; "The Interview," AFI; "China Princess," Coldplay; "Silver Lining," Hurts

* * *

><p>Sweep of the katana's blade, singing shrill and sweet in the misty night air; the taste of damp earth and moisture on indrawn breath. Niko's braid twisted heavily in his wake, thumped against his spine as he swept back a step. Muscles coiled tense and snapped free, and Niko's blade drove deeply into the revenant's neck. Grate of steel on bone, and the slim blade slipped between vertebrae and severed the spinal cord. The creature dropped, and Niko's arm dipped in a graceful curve to draw the blade free - and at the same time he was well-aware of the second revenant closing fast on his left.<p>

Just as he was entirely, completely aware of Cal behind him, footsteps in the wet grass, motion and the sudden muffled cough of a silenced gun.

It was much a part of his fighting skills as knowing his footing to know _exactly_ where Cal was, and Niko turned, ducking a clawing arm, booted feet digging deep into the damp earth, and stabbed again, for the revenant's throat. The third one to his right, and the fourth, the fifth...

Cal swore, harsh and breathless, but from frustration and not real trouble. Niko rushed low and fast at yet another pseudo-corpse, feeling the damp touch of the mist across his cheeks, lashes beaded with the moisture and cold against his own skin. A severed knee, a head removed, and Niko ducked a lunge, kicking out to knock the monster sprawling. He spun back, put his back to Cal's again, and barely flinched as Cal's arm propped over his shoulder and the Glock fired barely a foot from his ear.

Normally he would have minded the noise, but tonight they both had earplugs in. Tonight, they hunted a banshee in a church graveyard.

The revenants were many, somewhere close to forty, but they were no trouble. Niko twisted to the left to cover Cal's flank, sword driving through the mist with a soft shrill. It was a fight in eerie muffled near-silence, the mist blanketing the world thick and hazy, and every motion sent plumes of it swirling. The lack of sound took away so much of the brutality, Niko thought, as he hamstrung another revenant and watched it fall. He spun and slammed an elbow back into a reaching body, sent it sprawling across an ornate grave marker. A forward thrust - one less.

Cal dropped back, to the side, putting his back to a tree to reload. Niko darted in to cover him.

They were making a dent in the wave of monsters, if leaving behind an incredible mess. Cal moved, and Niko did too, dropping yet another as Cal stepped up beside him, Glock in one hand, broad-bladed short-sword in the other. Together they moved, working as a unit, and though there was no sound the synchronicity between them was as close to perfect as it had ever been. Niko felt a swell of pride, melding with the hot rush of a fight - Cal had come so far, and there was concentration on his face, precision in the stroke of the short-sword that took out a revenant.

Two, three more down, and breathing through his open mouth was like taking a drink of the misty air. Niko's braid swayed and snapped, counterweight to his sharp turn as he came in close and stabbed up short and sharp. Fighting revenants efficiently required pinpoint precision, a thrust to sever the spinal cord, and to do it quickly in this fight, with so many?

Niko swept back, readied his bloodied blade, and darted in again.

And then the banshee's song dropped him to his knees.

Wild and otherwordly, her voice was completely inhuman, almost like an owl's. The song was muffled by the ear-plugs but each note pulsed pain through Niko's head, until his vision was white and his head rang to the melody. (Dimly, he remembered Darkling had sung, too, but _nothing_ like this.)

_Cal_. Where was he? Niko struggled against the pain, but even though his eyes were open wide he was blind, body shuddering beyond his control. The hot trickle down either side of his neck told him oh how much trouble they were in.

Somewhere, somewhere _near_, a cry sprang free, twisted in the air, and strained against its human limitations. The notes were a counterpoint to the banshee's song, and the jarring discord spiked such agony through Niko's skull that consciousness became a dim thing, elusive in his grasp. He hovered in limbo, neither here nor gone, for what seemed like an interminable moment. The need to protect Cal, the iron undergirding of his will, drew him irresistibly back and he found the banshee's song had dwindled. Niko opened his eyes, spots lingering in his vision, and straightened to look for Cal.

Cal, kneeling beside Niko, bright red blood dripping down his throat from his ears. His grey eyes were wide, and he was humming now, hands clenched into fists. Humming, but Niko could hear it - sense it - feel it somehow.

The banshee was humming too, as she walked through the mist to them. A woman's shape, with pale skin and white hair drifting in the wind of her passage. Her eyes were bright silver, like a polished mirror, and she wore a long grey shroud. Coming to a halt before them, she spread her hands wide, and bowed, before she stopped humming. Cal stopped half a beat after she did, and uncurled one fist to reach up and touch his throat, pain tightening his lips.

"I know who sent ye," the banshee said, her voice clear as a bell, rich with a thick Irish brogue. Niko could hear it clearly despite the earplugs, the pain in his ears and head. "What be it that he asks of me?"

Cal reached up and pulled the earplugs out. A string of clotting blood clung to one of them. Niko followed suit and found the hand not clenched around his sword's hilt was trembling. "He wants you to move shop, bitch." Cal's voice was harsh and hoarse, strained thin, and Niko could barely make out his words.

The banshee raised a feathery brow. "An' to be sure, all chivalry has died from the world. Where do I be movin', _aos si_?"

The paper was in his pocket. Niko breathed carefully through his mouth, and moved slowly to hide the lingering tremor. He could hardly think straight - his head was throbbing that badly. He did not miss the Gaelic, however...nor did he miss how close the pronunciation came to that of "Auphe." Niko stood carefully, pulled the paper out, and held it out to her between two fingers. He noted suddenly that all around them, the revenants lay as if dead...

The banshee took the paper. It was an address to a small residential district, and Niko had no idea why their client the priest was sending her there, so close to humans. He cleared his throat, tasted blood on the back of his tongue, and tried hard to speak quietly. "Why is he sending you there?"

He couldn't hear himself talk, which was highly unsettling. Cal looked at him, sharply, grey eyes wide then narrowed. Pain bracketed Cal's mouth in deep lines, scored between his brows, but he was on his feet and steady still.

The banshee examined the paper. "I know not. The priest's ken is beyond me own." She looked at them both, silver eyes solemn. "Keep singing, _aos si_, and mayhap one day ye'll do that gift justice." She bowed to them again - then dissolved into mist. The paper fluttered to rest at Niko's feet, as he sucked in a startled breath.

He and Cal both exchanged stunned looks. That had been a very...dramatic exit.

By unspoken agreement, they both turned and walked to the car. And if Cal walked faster than usual, and Niko kept his sword out until the reached the street, well, it was possible that not all those revenants had been dead, slain by the banshee's song.

Niko found the sound of the car doors slamming was muffled, and Cal's voice indistinct as he looked at Niko and asked if he was okay. Pounding headache aside, Niko was a little worried about the damage to his ears. He hoped it wasn't permanent. He touched his ears, felt the coolness of clotting blood, and decided from the ache deep inside his skull that it was entirely possible that his eardrums had been torn. He leaned over and examined Cal's ears - no visible damage, but he had no easy way to tell if Cal's hearing was similarly impaired. He held up a hand and snapped his fingers, a sharp hollow pop he could feel in his bones, but not hear with his ears.

Cal shook his head a little, winced at the motion, and dug his fingers in at his temples. There was still pain on his face.

Niko decided the best thing he could do was to take them both home, and dose Cal with pain medication.

Even as he started the car, however, he was balancing the pulsing throb of his own headache with a careful replay of what had happened. The words that had been said, and all they implied. The banshee's mention of the Irish _aos si_ - those who lived in the mounds, the Tumulus folk.

Niko's eyes widened a fraction as he made the connection between the legends. Of course _of course_, the faerie-folk who lived in a world parallel, associated with death and the dying, the mounds that were tombs, the gates between worlds that death represented. And the similar pronunciation of the names. Niko had delved into the Norse and Germanic origins of the elf-myths in his search to name the Grendels. Somehow he had never thought to cross-connect the Irish fairy myths to that of the bloodthirsty Auphe. And yet he _should_ have. It should have been obvious.

Niko scowled, and drove slowly along the misty streets, all the better to not get in an accident.

He tried to remember what he knew of those myths, but the words and stories kept jumbling, tangled up with the pain that throbbed in time with his pulse. He had a better tolerance to pain than Cal did, and if he was hurting this much... He glanced at Cal, who was rubbing his throat again.

"What did you do?" Niko modulated his voice consciously, carefully, and Cal looked up: Niko caught it from the corner of his eye as he watched the traffic. "You were humming." And the cry, too musical to be quite called a shout.

"She was trying to kill us." Cal's voice was a rough rasp. "And I just...knew how to stop it. Darkling's memories, I think." He grimaced again, eyes closing briefly, fingers lingering on his neck.

Niko decided asking more questions, when he could barely hear the response and it hurt for Cal to answer, was not a productive idea. Instead he considered honey and hot tea for throat remedies, and whether or not that priest had known Cal had once been possessed by Darkling. If he had...but Niko did not think Promise would have let slip that detail carelessly.

Perhaps, then, it had been luck, but Niko didn't believe a great deal in luck or chance or fate.

He believed in what he could see.

He and Cal were still alive, and that would have to be enough.

And yet he wondered.


	16. Skunked!

****A/N:**** I do not own The Cal Leandros novels. They belong to Rob Thurman. All kudos to her.

* * *

><p>The problem with having a super sense of smell?<p>

You can get knocked down by something nasty. Especially if it's strong.

Skunk, by the way, is_ rank_. Really fucking nasty. Particularly right in your face, in a small damp basement that already stinks to high heavens of mold and rotten garbage and bird crap. See, apparently skunks like abandoned dark basements to hang out in, and they get pretty damn cranky when you start shooting shit up.

Which is why I'm over here yukking up lunch and seriously regretting the super-spicy nacho supreme (doesn't taste half so great the second time around) while Niko's over there soloing the the flock - murder - fuck, whatever you call a bunch of psycho crow monsters with swords. Some kind of Asian thing that Niko told me about on the way up and I pretty much didn't listen to except for how to kill it. Hot lead to the brain, check; don't get self beheaded, check.

Now the skunk...yeah. Those suckers will still spray you even after you shoot 'em (it didn't know it was dead yet). At least the damn thing hadn't bitten me too.

But the smell? Thick musky _clinging_... Fuck fuck fuck my nose is running, my eyes are watering, and my stomach is turning itself inside out. I can hardly breathe. The stuff is all in my face and my hair and in my clothes... Fuuuuuuck...

"Cal?" Niko glances over his shoulder, blade in a deadlock with one of the feathery monsters.

I try straightening up and end up with another round of heaves. My nose has to adapt sooner or later, right? Better be sooner, even if I'm pretty sure Niko can handle all five creatures. There had been six, but one's down on the floor with a bullet in its brain. No more attacks from that one.

Okay, try again, wiping my snotty nose and face on my sleeve. Up, gun steady, mouth watering oh fuck _again_? There is no way I ate that much for lunch.

Crowcalls and the sharp ring of sword on sword. Niko's boots scuffing on concrete, the familiar swish of his braid. I hate being down for the count but I'm soaked in skunk-juice and my Auphe nose is killing me. I pant for breath, spit out a mouthful of puke, and try again. Up on my feet, gun raised. Niko's damn fast, I can hardly see him move, but I know _how_ he fights, the patterns and the moves, and I take aim.

Pull the trigger, take the recoil, dammit only clipped the feathery bastard. They're fast but Niko's faster, and a head goes flying even as I take aim again. One-two bullets and another one bites the dust. Two for Cal, go me. Puke my guts up and I can still kick ass.

Niko ducks under a blade, sword in either hand, taking on two at once. ...showoff. Duck dodge weave, can I take a shot and not hit him? Angle's all wrong. "Nik!"

"Left," he snaps out, and arrows out to the right, sword snapping through the monster's chest.

Leaving the last for me, whoopdedo.

A single shot and down it goes. Clean headshot. Damn straight I'm that badass.

Niko turns to me, nudging a still-rolling head with a boot-toe as he passes it. He gives me his best Zen face of asshat blankness, and says, "You smell putrid."

"Gee, Nik, love you too." Urgh, dammit, mouth watering again... Dry heaves, yay.

"You are walking home." Niko wipes his swords down and sheathes them. "You are not getting in my car smelling that foul." Never mind the fact that by being in the same room, he smells just as bad at this point.

"Yeah, I'm not too happy 'bout it either," I report, holstering my gun. If I thought it would help, I'd strip, but it's all in my hair too. Nothing doing. I start heading up the stairs - I need some fresh air. New York City's air pollution hardly counts as fresh, but today I'll take anything that isn't skunk-flavored. "Nik, I hate skunks."


	17. BusCat

**A/N: **I do not own the Cal Leandros series.

Cal and Niko are wandering in and out these days, and nursing school is eating my time. But I've still got some writing in me.

* * *

><p>Niko was slowing his breathing, watching it cloud in the early morning chill, when Cal abruptly dropped out of sight. Niko caught the vanishing act from the corner of his eye and turned. Cal was crouched down, extending a hand, and a very large solid black cat was delicately sniffing Cal's cold-reddened fingertips.<p>

The cat - probably a tomcat, from the sheer breadth of his skull - decided Cal smelled acceptable and thrust his head into Cal's palm, standing on tiptoes.

Niko watched with bemusement as Cal stroked the cat, and offered a few awkward finger scritches under the chin and around the ears. The cat purred in a loud, rusty manner, tail curled in a lazy arch, stretching upwards into the attention. Cal gave one last stroke down an arching spine, and stood up. The cat, undeterred, padded closer and curved against Cal's jeans leg.

"I wasn't aware you solicited affection from unknown cats."

Cal blinked, sleepily, despite the hour-long run. His breath puffed out in the early morning spring air, and he shrugged wordlessly. He glanced down at the cat. "Heh. Think he's waiting for the bus?"

The tomcat was now sitting beside Cal, primly, tail curled around front paws, watching the traffic as they stood at the bus-stop. Niko shrugged a little. "Perhaps." He doubted it; the cat was probably more attracted by Cal's friendliness. Niko was a little surprised; Cal was not always so openly inviting to any animal. Granted, most animals avoided him, sensing in their wise animal ways the truth of his nature. Cats seemed to be an exception, however.

"Man, I'm hungry," Cal grumbled into his scarf. He slouched deeper into his jacket.

"If you would eat breakfast," Niko sighed, quietly.

"An' puke it all up Let's add to this torture. Great idea Nik." retorted Cal, bending to pet the cat again.

The bus rumbled up and creaked to a halt. Niko bent and scooped up the bag of groceries, cloth resuable bag rustling. He stepped up onto the bus. Cal trooped along after, feet dragging. Niko chose a seat not too gum-covered and sat near the window. Cal flopped down beside him, then perked out of his slouch. "Hey, the cat. He is riding the bus!"

The bus driver chuckled. "You mean Odyssus? He rides along every week." Niko watched as the cat leapt up into the first seat, and sat there, statue-like with tail curled around his toes.

As the bus rumbled off, the cat sat there still as stone, and Cal leaned over the back of the seat in front of him, watching the cat with a lazy tip of his head. "Odyssus is a good name for a bus riding cat."

Niko tried not to think about the stain on the back of the seat in front of them. "I suppose it is."

"Oh, I'm not sure what his name is," the bus driver said. "I just call him that. He makes a round trip, too. Not sure what to charge a cat, though."

"Mice tails, probably," Cal decided, head sagging to the side. He twitched back upright.

Niko dug a knuckle into his ribs. Cal twisted with a protesting noise, heel of his hand thumping down against against Niko's wrist, right behind the mala beads. Niko nodded and let his hand drop away. Cal glared over his shoulder, fitfully. Niko smiled at him. Cal buried his face in his arms briefly, with something that sounded suspiciously like 'fuck morning people' but he lifted his head and resumed watching the rest of the bus, which was fairly empty for the hour.

Good, good, paying attention. Niko nodded, examined his groceries to make sure the eggs and the kiwis were riding safely on the very top, unsquashed. He found they were unbruised and glanced out the dirty and smudged window. Hand prints, nose-prints...was that smear...?

Public transportation was a veritable cesspool of germs. Niko shook his head in disgust.

Their stop was not near, but after Cal had started weaving during their run, Niko had given in and called a halt, picking up a few groceries. The bus-ride home was another giving in, honestly, but Cal had kept up for a good eight miles before he'd started to lag.

Niko glanced along the bus, at the cat who sat primly and quietly. The bus driver hummed idly to himself, above the diesel rumble of the engine, the clatter of the ancient bus. Niko watched Cal, keeping him in the corner of his vision as he simultaneously watched the bus, the traffic, and the cat. He suspected the cat was not an entirely normal feline. However, it seemed content to masquerade as such. Niko would not bother it.

Cal did not nod off, though he had the sleepy stares, grey eyes slightly unfocused as he blanked out. He and the cat looked remarkably similar, for a moment, seeing things no-one else could... But Cal was simply on the verge of falling asleep again. Perfectly human. Niko nudged him with an elbow, but Cal dropped his own, blocking on autopilot. Niko chuckled and let him be. As long as he was not actively falling asleep, and was still paying attention...

They got off before the cat did. Cal paused to add one last headscratch, and then they were out, crossing the street in the early morning spring sunshine. They were almost flattened by a delivery truck. Cal lazily flipped the driver off. "You got eggs, right?"

"I did." Niko glanced briefly at his bag as he stepped up on the sidewalk - eggs and kiwis still safe.

"Bacon?"

Niko snorted. His view on bacon was well-known to Cal, but hope sprang eternal. With that as his only answer, he headed into the lobby of their apartment building. Cal followed with a mournful sigh, trailing along obediently.

Breakfast awaited.


	18. Hair

**A/N: **I do not own the Cal Leandros series.

Based off my own experiences with growing my hair out. From waist-length to chin-length is a big change!

* * *

><p>The first time after he'd cut his hair that he could pull it back in a braid, Niko didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry. On the one hand, it was a laughable braid, three twists and a bristly fat end that barely brushed right above his shoulderblades. On the other hand, it was a <em>braid<em> and he'd missed it more than he'd cared to admit. He'd borne the weight of his hair for so many years his neck had felt just plain _naked _after he'd cut it. After Cal had been okay, because until that point he'd not been worried about it. But now...

He stared at his reflection for several solemn moments, then irresistibly turned his head to see the way the thick stubby braid laid along the curve of his neck, pale gold against olive-tan skin.

Then he snorted at himself and went out into the apartment.

Cal stopped eating, a spoon full of cornflakes halfway to his open mouth. Niko scowled for a moment and Cal shut his mouth and straightened from his sleepy hunch. "Hey. You braided it."

"Yes. Points for being so astute this early. Minus points for eating like a barbarian."

Cal scowled, but got up from his chair and walked around the table. Niko stood still, raising one eyebrow in question. Cal ignored it and reached up to touch the pathetic stump of a braid, fingers brushing down the pitiable length. Then he met Niko's grey eyes, and smirked faintly, long fingers wrapping around blonde hair and tugging gently.

"Damn."

Niko nodded, reached up to tap a warning finger in the crook of Cal's elbow, against the nerves. Cal backed off appropriately, for a moment guarding to prove he did indeed know what he was about, no need for an impromptu sparring session before he'd finished breakfast.

Niko went to fetch his yogurt and felt the tiny braid sway against the side of his neck. A flick of his head he'd never stopped using, even all these months, straightened the braid out and he stood again.

A step towards something a little more normal. They were on the mend. They'd be alright.

And maybe it was foolish to take the length of his hair as a sign of the course of their lives, but he'd cut it for symbolic reasons; the loss of everything he'd loved, everything he'd needed in life. And now, his hair was long enough to braid again.

Niko looked at Cal, eating his cornflakes with sleepy hunger, and allowed himself a small smile.

Perhaps he'd laugh about it.


	19. Hate

**A/N: **I do not own the Cal Leandros series. Musings on Niko. SPOILERS for Doubletake.

* * *

><p><em>"You are our family."<em>

Cal's back against mine.

_"Help us."_

Nowhere else to turn.

_"I'm begging you."_

All the desperation in the world, brought to my knees. And...

...rejection. Damnation. _"Kill the mad beast and return to your clan."_

Never. Never never _never_! How dare they, how could they? He was hurt and I couldn't help him. We were _hunted_ and had no protection. They were our _family_, our clan. Skin as dark as mine, the Rom. The evil eye, the degrading spit, the anger and hatred in their eyes. The words they'd spoken - the insults. Unclean. Freak. Abomination. Monster.

_"You are the monsters. We don't need your help. We don't_ want_ your worthless damned help."_

Hurt and betrayal sharp as any blade...and anger and hate hard on their heels. My brother my _blood_ my heart and my soul. He is my family, and no-one else. No-one else. We have no other family.

The face of my father, mirror to mine. Dark eyes to grey, age and scars. Voice of my own, sure, confident, deep. _"I heard what happened. I was not there. I swear it to you, Niko. I would not lie to you."_ Liar, liar, what horrors you have wrought.

Hatred hard and hot and checked up by the barest threads of self control. (Control is everything.) Anger blinding and burning, the _need_ for blood. (Who is the real monster of the two?) Bitterness of old scars reopened, the betrayal. (The heart is evil and desperately wicked...)

_"Trust me, Cal. I hate him enough for us both."_

Self control...and the eager violent _release._ Consumed and devoured and losing myself in the heat, the _hate_. How dare you _how dare you?_ My brother my brother _my brother_. You would have me cast him off _kill him_ my brother my brother. My heart, my soul, my life and breath.

_"Never have I told so many lies that made me want to bite off my tongue. You're the son of a slut and a whore. Why would I claim you?"_

_Abomination. Auphe freak. Kill the unholy nightmare. Kill Caliban._

You would _take him away_ and keep me from following him into death and the very gates of Hell.

And for that I will _kill you._


	20. A Good Baby

**A/N:** I do not own the Cal Leandros series.

Do not ask me how nursing school homework somehow equaled cute-baby-Cal fic. I really don't know.

* * *

><p>Cal, Niko decided, was a good baby. Niko wanted to plug his ears to stop hearing the baby screaming on the bus, but he needed his hands to hang onto Cal, who was sitting complacently in Niko's lap and chewing on the collar of his shirt. After six months, Niko had gotten used to a shirt that was constantly damp, though his neck was getting chapped in a strange scaly pattern. Cal never screamed, not like that, loud and constant and wailing. No, Cal was a very good baby.<p>

Niko was glad to see his stop, and hefting baby brother and backpack, he stepped off and headed over the hot sidewalk. Cal's tiny chubby fingers twisted in Niko's shaggy hair and he winced at the pull. He needed to cut his hair again but it was awful hard to do and he'd been so busy with Cal, well, it was right down past his shoulders now. Maybe he'd see if he could get some rubber bands or something, and he pattered into the dollar store without hesitation. Formula and baby food for Cal, more baby wipes, and something for Cal to teeth on, maybe. He had one tooth, Niko thought, or one trying to come in 'cause when he'd been chewing on Niko's thumb Niko had felt something sharp.

Niko decided that there probably wasn't an inch of him that hadn't been covered in baby spit at some point. He'd done his best to wash them both off before coming to town, but Cal was drooling all over again.

Carrying Cal and the basket of baby-items was a hard workout. Niko had to stop and sit down on the floor for a few minutes, dizzy. A concerned woman stopped to lean over him, but Niko smiled and mutely shook his head and she went away. Good. He gathered himself back up. Cal chirped and Niko shushed him automatically, bouncing the baby on his hip. Quiet again, Cal stared solemnly at the cashier while Niko one-handedly counted out his crumpled dollars and coins. The older woman crooned nonsense at him but Cal was quiet and still, his grey-blue eyes tracking her motions.

Niko thanked her gravely and left. He headed down the street and used his last two dollars to bribe an older homeless man to get a tray from the soup kitchen - Niko by himself would get in trouble. He'd already figured that out. The man was actually nice and did bring out the food and Niko sat down in the pinestraw-strewn depths of the ornamental flowerbed to eat in the shade of the bushes. Cal sat beside him and happily chewed on the new teething ring, utterly silent. Niko's hands shook as he ate the sandwich, slowly, bite by bite. If he ate it fast like he wanted to he'd be sick. So, slow, and careful. He needed to find a way to earn more money...it was hard to feed himself and Cal just picking up cans and recycling old glass bottles. Sophia spent all her money on whiskey and drugs, with none left over for Niko or Cal. And this week there just wasn't any food, and the power was out in the apartment, so what Niko'd had was spoiled now.

Niko ate half the sandwich and drank all the milk and saved the chips for later. He put them in his backpack. Cal was still playing, leaning on Niko's lap, thumping the teething ring off Niko's leg. Niko grimaced as he hit the bruise on Niko's knee with unerring accuracy. Ow.

"Cal," Niko whispered, softly.

Cal's head turned and his big grey-blue eyes brightened. He was a beautiful baby, Niko thought with pride, with round pink cheeks and bright big eyes and a feathery soft thick down of black black hair. He smiled widely at Niko, delighted, and Niko couldn't help but smile back.

"Cal," he called again.

Cal made one of his oddly birdlike chirps, a soft noise. "Nehneh," he whispered, and gurgled quietly with a laugh. Niko couldn't help but chuckle too and pulled Cal up into his lap to cuddle him and tickle him and make him laugh that little laugh again - it was, Niko thought, one of the best noises in the whole wide world.

Besides, he was saying Niko's name now, and that was best of all! At least, Niko was pretty sure that's what "neh neh" translated to. Cal was creeping too, and sleeping longer at night, which was really really good too.

Niko cuddled Cal again, then grimaced as a familiar smell wafted up.

Ten minutes and a diaper-change later they were out of the bushes and heading off to wait for the bus again. Niko squirmed his way up onto the bench and sat with Cal in his lap, chewing busily on the teething ring. Niko stared down at his dark downy head and tried hard not to feel so sleepy. Eating had made him tired now that he wasn't hungry anymore. He was almost always sleepy anyway, because Cal didn't sleep all night.

The bus came, and stopped, and Niko hopped up with Cal to make the baby giggle, just for fun. Except hopping up fast made him dizzy again and he sat right back down on the hot pavement and had to sit there a minute. Two of the people who'd been waiting for the bus leaned over him and the driver even came out to see. Niko brushed off his Good Samaritans with some difficulty; he was having to pant for breath a little when he got back up, still just a little dizzy. Through it all, Cal was silent, clinging to Niko with pinching chubby fingers and watching everyone. But they got up, Niko got on the bus, and everything was okay. They'd go home and Niko could get into the fort under the bed and have a nap, maybe, because Cal couldn't push away the used milk-crates and escape or get into anything.

Niko got off the bus slowly and walked to the apartment with his head high, completely unaware of the figure he cut, or the impression he'd left in the eyes of his would-be helpers: a child of five with too-pale, hollow cheeks and dark sleepless marks under his solemn grey eyes, all narrow bones instead of childish dimples, with shaggy thick blonde hair and spit-up smeared down the shoulder of his shirt, carrying a perfectly plump baby just as solemn and uncannily silent for a baby that age.

A haunting image of determination, of poverty, of selfless devoted love.


	21. Ashes, Ashes

**A/N: **So this chapter went up and then vanished. Sorry guys - I wrote it and posted it after back-to-back 12 hour shifts at the hospital, after a shift on which two patients had died, and I'd slept about six hours in that 36 hour period, and had been awake for about 16 hours straight. Loopy on caffeine and emotional drama (after panicking over nursing school grades and the possibility of _failing out in my final semester) _well, I shouldn't have posted it without letting it sit and proofreading it later. (No, I'm not flunking out, just so ya'll know - I misread my grade.)

So! After some edits and general tidying, it's back. Sorry for the inconvenience. I will try to do better in the future.

I do not own any of these characters, they were created and are owned by Rob Thurman!

Alternate title: Why Niko is a Vegetarian. Not as funny as it sounds. Traumatizing, really.

And yes. Burnt human does smell exactly like barbecue - sweet and meaty and tantalizing. It's not something you're likely to forget, either. Oh, the things you learn in the ER...do not smoke in bed, my friends, you'll drop your cigarette and end up with third-degree burns over half your body, and end up burning your penis right off. True story.

* * *

><p><em>So lock all your doors, put your child to rest<em>  
><em>There's fire in streets now, but it's quiet in your head<em>  
><em>We're passing the time, we're breaking apart<em>  
><em>We're damned at the end, and we're damned at the start<em>  
><em>Blame it on the roses, blame it on the red<em>  
><em>We're running out of time, and we're running out of breath<em>  
>-"Hey Now," Augustana<p>

* * *

><p>The trailer burned long, long into the night.<p>

Niko shivered despite the heat, lying in the dewy grass. He couldn't hear the roar of the flames, only the echo of screams inside his head. Cal's terrified screams, Sophia's howls as she burned alive. He rolled on his side and wretched miserably, sick from the smoke and the memories, the smell of barbecue. The smell of Sophia burnt to a crisp. Burns were patched along his own arms, one ear blistered, cuts scattered all over his body from breaking the back window in a wild desperation and scrabbling scrambling out.

And Cal, oh _Cal._

Gone. He'd gotten free just in time to see the Grendels take Cal away and seal up the world behind them.

Niko had run after them, stared at the empty space. A single dragging footmark showed where they'd been...and where they were not.

Niko had gone to his knees, and sat there for nearly an hour before the grief began to break through the shock.

He'd cried, and been sick, and now he lay cold and still in the grass and watched the sky turn grey, then pink, then shade to lavender and finally blue. He was stiff and cold and could smell only smoke and ash. The sun had climbed into the sky for an hour before he could even sit up, numbed out, afraid to look at the trailer.

There was practically nothing left. A few charred posts, metal fixtures drooping and melted. And then his eyes landed on the blacked shriveled _thing_ that had been Sophia. For a few wild moments Niko didn't think he could even breathe, struck by the panicking urge to bolt. It was human-shaped, after a fashion, with limbs stiff and curled towards the sky, throes of agony and death. All her hair was gone. For some reason Niko hit that thought and snagged. Her hair. Her long black beautiful hair that she brushed and brushed - gone and turned to ash.

God, oh merciful God that Sophia had always petitioned when Niko had done something exasperating...

Niko sat shaking under the sunshine and stared at the charred corpse.

Her hair was gone. She was gone.

No-one in the world deserved to die like that, Niko thought, finding tears on his face only when one dripped off his nose. No-one in the world...and not Sophia, not even her. (Especially not her.)

The sun had risen higher. It was almost midday before Niko could get up, his legs wobbly and uncertain. The trailer was gone, the devastation complete. There wasn't anything but rubble left. Their whole lives, reduced to ash and grit. Cal, _gone_ beyond all reach. Sophia, charred and dead. Niko gagged as the thought socked him hard in the gut and he swayed on his feet. He tried not to look at her as he made his way around the burnt remains of the trailer. Was there anything, anything at all left? The ash was too hot to touch - white and gently smoking, deceptively smooth. Niko, barefoot on the grass, stepped on a hot coal and blistered the arch of his foot in instant agony. He sat right down on the grass, felt the pain, stared at what was left of Sophia, and began to cry as he hadn't for many, many years.

Sophia was dead and Cal was gone and Niko had a single garbage sack of clothes and books in the beaten-down car that was his, two of the windows blown out from the fire.

Niko put his face in his ashy gritty hands and there was no-one to hear the great, whooping sobs that shook through him, a single voice raised in grieving.

Time was irrelevant when everything you knew was dead, Niko thought, surprising himself with the clarity of the thought. He sat up from the grass. It was late afternoon, the sun slanted and strong. He took in the tragedy of what had been home, and got slowly to his feet. He felt numb again, but it was a helpful numb, not the stunned shock that had left him utterly senseless in the immediate wake of everything.

Niko walked to the car, tongue thick and dry in his mouth, limping on his burned foot. He methodically searched for food or water, something purely physical to do that didn't require him to think about how he was standing with his back to Sophia's corpse. He found a bottled of water, warm, and a box of stale saltine crackers. He sat in the hot car and ate a handful, pulling greedily at the water, staring down at his bare feet on the grass, the right with a huge fat blister on the arch. Did he have another pair of shoes? Maybe. In the trunk, maybe. He couldn't remember.

He finished off the water and moved to the trunk. His fingers were streaked with black ash as he fumbled the keys to open the trunk. It made his breath catch in his throat, and he had to stop and close his eyes before he could breathe again. The trunk had more books, a small first-aid kit, and...yes, shoes. A pair of old sneakers that were ratty with knotty laces. They were lying on top of a blanket. Niko took the shoes, and stood staring at the blanket. He picked it up, reverently, and sat down in the grass to pull his shoes on. The right one was uncomfortable, pressing on the blister. The blanket cradled in his arms, Niko limped across the grass.

He almost couldn't do it. His hands shook so he nearly dropped the blanket as he unfolded it. With a sharp snap of his wrists, the fabric spread through the evening air and settled over what was left of Sophia. Niko tried hard not to look at it, the streaks of charred bone and muscle and lips peeled back from skull-bared teeth and the sensation of the blanket catching across the stiff unforgiving corpse sent him staggering back in revulsion. The sweet-sour waft of charred meat that stirred up from under the blanket was too much and Niko went to his knees and vomited. He couldn't look at the blanket-covered remains, shivering again, arms wrapped tightly around himself.

Where was God Almighty and his sweet archangels, as Sophia had cried to in her younger days?

Maybe He wasn't listening, and maybe He'd never been there and Niko just hadn't known enough to see it.

For a long time Niko didn't think he even wanted to move, didn't know if he could. Cal was gone, and with him all of Niko's purpose in life. But then it occurred to him that it was going to be dark in less than an hour and he was kneeling not two feet away from a dead body. With a shudder he got to his feet, and found himself dizzy and lightheaded. He stumbled his way back to the car and closed the door. He didn't know if he slept or if he simply stared at the dark ceiling the whole time; all he knew was he could not stop hearing the screams in the dark. He wasn't sure it mattered either way, really. Cal was gone. Sophia was dead. What else in this world did he have? Nothing, and no-one. No-one had even seen the fire. No-one had come to help, and no-one would.

He couldn't even dig either Cal or Sophia a grave.

That started him crying again.

He rose with the dawn, dry-eyed and feeling like a shadow. Thin and empty and without purpose or definition. He moved past Sophia's corpse and used a long stick to stir through the rubble and ash, just to have something to do. It had rained in the night, and the live coals were out now. Niko found nothing of real value. A melted lump of gold and silver - Sophia's jewelry. And then, under a pile of mushy jump, he found her strong-box. It was warped and filthy with ash, but he dug it out and took it and the jewelry back to the car. He pried the lid open with a knife, ruining the blade, and found the papers - and photographs - in it were undamaged. Numbly, Niko sorted through it, ashy fingers leaving smudged prints. A collection of Polaroids, of Sophia's abandoned family. Two of Sophia herself, one young and gay and dancing, the other young and wearing an expectant expression of annoyance. Niko's heart ached - he'd taken that picture, from a child's height and a child's crooked angle, and that was the expression he remembered best from her: 'well, what, kid?'

There was a picture of himself, the date neatly lettered. Three years old, smiling brightly, blonde hair nearly white, grey eyes laughing.

His birth certificate. He hadn't known he'd been born in Kentucky.

Sophia's Social Security card. A collection of handwritten letters, faded and dim. A small posy of dried flowers that crumbled when he touched them, damaged by the heat and time. That was it. Niko shook his head, and started to put everything back. It was mostly useless, really.

He turned the birth certificate over, and blinked. Written on the back, in a corner, in Sophia's best calligraphy, was a note. Niko read it, and tears filled his eyes.

_'I didn't always hate you. -Sophie'_

He was crying again, and found it in him to whisper, "I didn't always hate you, either, Sophie." Short and soft, he hadn't said her name like that for longer than he could remember; a child's lisp of a once-beloved name.

He put the papers away and spent a long time staring at the trailer, trying not to look at the blanket on the ground.

As the light slanted to evening again, it occurred to Niko that he was alive.

He was alive, and he was thirsty, and Sophia was dead and Cal was gone.

What else did he have left to live for?

Everything he had once loved was gone.

Niko got to his feet and limped to the trailing, long foot-drag in the grass. Cal had done that, fighting to get away. Fighting to get back to him. Niko swallowed against the taste of tears and stared at it.

Cal was gone, and with him everything good in Niko's life. Niko had nothing left, not even a corpse to mourn over. Cal was _gone._

And the gate opened, and Cal came back.


	22. Wardrums

**A/N:** I do not own the Cal Leandros series, or the song lyrics. This song is Niko's song in the Doubletake Fanmix available on iTunes.

It's an eerie song, especially if you consider the deeper implications of the lyrics. They're not healthy.

* * *

><p><em>Lay your head down child<br>I won't let the boogeyman come  
>Counting bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the wardrums<br>Pay no mind to the rabble  
>Pay no mind to the rabble<br>Head down, go to sleep to the rhythm of the wardrums  
><em>-"Pet," A Perfect Circle

* * *

><p>Monsters are real.<p>

Niko knows this well.

Cal sleeps on his shoulder, dark head a heavy weight, body tangled limp and quiet. Niko hums under his breath, voice steady as he glares at the window. Fear is cold down his spine, locking his jaw tight - oh, he's too proud to scream - but the nightmare at the window _smiles_. Sharp metal teeth, jagged and glimmering in the moonlight. Glowing red eyes, scarlet light highlighting the jagged ebony talon that scrapes down the glass. The thin, oh-so-thin pane of glass keeping the monster out.

It's no real protection and Niko _knows_ it.

Neither is the rust-freckled butcher knife Niko's shaking hand rests on under the pillow, but it's _something._

The monster's bone-white skin gleams tight over corded muscles, and white hair drifts in the breeze as though no lighter than dandelion fluff.

Niko's mouth is dry, but still he hums. If he hums, Cal can't hear the scrape-scrape-tik-tik-tik of claws on glass.

Won't wake up and know the monster at the window is smiling for him, a predator's leer.

A voice like ground glass and acid, low and hissing, sinking through the glass like poison. "Baby boy, my baby boy."

_No._ Cal is _his._

Cal is_ his_ and monsters are _real_ and they will not _take Cal._

Niko's not really sure if the knife is for the monster...or for them.


	23. The Water Horse

**A/N: **I do not own the Cal Leandros series, nor the characters!

So since I was right about Viking!Niko and about Niko being a dynamite bundle of emotion and issues behind his calm facade, think if I write about kelpies and Niko and Cal, Rob Thurman will have them in the next book?

Well, I can hope!

* * *

><p>Right. So. Kelpies. Sure, they look like horses. Sure, they're wet and have riverweed in their manes. Horses look nice and harmless, right? If you'd told me that five minutes ago, I'd have believed it. No questions asked.<p>

If you'd tried to tell me that _now_ I'd have kicked you in the kneecaps and run so it could eat you first. Survival of the fittest - the stupid and gullible die first.

Because that nice harmless looking kelpie had just snaked its head out and snapped at me. Horses' mouths only opened so much, that I knew. A kelpie's mouth opened all the goddamn way back, lips stretched to nothing over black gums. And the teeth? None of those nice, normal dull horse-teeth, no, this looked like a lion's mouth on steroids. Did I mention the forked tongue? It reminded me a lok of the velociraptors from Jurassic Park, actually. Which was why I whipped out my gun and tried to shoot the damn thing.

Niko's hand slapping over the sights of my Desert Eagle put a stop to that, though. "I do not think she intends to harm us, as she is our client."

The kelpie calmly closed its mouth, pricked delicate pointed ears, and nodded its head up and down, pawing the ground with one abalone-shell hoof. I glared. "That's a hell of a greeting," I drawled, refusing to admit my heart was thundering in my chest. Hey, you have as many monsters as I have try to eat you on a regular basis and see if giant monster teeth flying at your face doesn't make you a little nervous. Or ready for a fight.

Niko nodded, but his grey eyes never left the horse-monster. "Ishiah mentioned you had a nest of grundylows you wished removed. He said you were willing to pay our price."

The kelpie tossed its had again, nodding. It was black like water under the night sky - deceptively harmless looking until it swallowed you whole. We didn't like to side with monsters that ate people, but we had taken it on faith that Ish would not recommend us a job that would compromise Niko's morals. As for my own, well, I was still forming my opinions on that.

"He also said you do not drown people anymore." Niko's voice was cool and stern.

Again the nodding, this time accompanied by a watery whicker. So that was what a horse underwater sounded like.

"Do you always say yes? I hope you're not a one-trick pony."

Niko's hand impacted the back of my head at approximately warp-speed, far too fast for me to dodge. "Ow!"

The kelpie _chuckled_. Dammit. It shook its head at me, and bared its teeth like it was grinning. It was almost enough to give me nightmares...except I'd seen the likes of the Auphe and Goodfellow proposing exhibitionist sex with my boss on the bar. I'd wished for some brain-bleach after that one. I flipped the kelpie the bird. It snorted, a fine rainbow mist exhaled from fluttering nostrils. Then it flicked its head, as though pointing with its chin, and walked over to the edge of the water.

When Niko made to follow I grabbed his wrist, fingers sliding through his steel mala beads. I wasn't so convinced our kelpie here had turned over a new leaf and wouldn't drown us single-handedly. Hoofed-ly.

Niko glanced at me. He raised a blonde brow. He looked back at the kelpie. "You will take us to the nest?"

The kelpie nodded again, and pawed at the water. Then it stood still, watching, green eyes the only thing alive. It looked like a statue of a horse, if a statue could be liquid and gleaming under the streetlights.

"If you drown us, I'm turning you into glue," I threatened. It snorted, and chuckled again.

Niko nodded, and moved forward. I followed, still hanging onto his wrist. The kelpie was still, until Niko reached the water's edge. The it reached out and touched him very gently on the arm with its nose. It twisted its neck, and almost touched its own shoulder. Then it sidled sideways, presenting its shoulder to Niko. Niko blinked, and I stared suspiciously. What the hell did it want now? Niko gently extracted his wrist from my hand and reached up, running a hand down a sleek water-shine shoulder. The horse nodded, and Niko raised an eyebrow.

"Ah. You will take us there. I see."

The kelpie nodded, but I damn sure didn't see. "What?"

Niko turned to me, and smiled faintly. "I'll give you a leg up."

What? Wait, no. "Oh hell no. It's a kelpie, Nik, they drown people who try to ride them. I remember what you told me." I shook my head.

"For once," Niko jabbed, with a smirk in his voice. He looked at the kelpie. Its shoulders came to his chest. "You'll take us there safely, and bring us back, won't you."

The kelpie nodded again, pricking its ears at him. Yeah, I trusted it about as far as I could throw it. I eyed the shiny black hide and the bright green eyes. Niko beckoned, I swore, and I gave in. What else was I supposed to do? Niko gave me quiet instructions; I wound my fingers in the wet wiry mane, let his hands grip my bent, raised left calf, and on his count jumped, twisting. I banged my knee on the damn thing's hip and nearly lurched off the other side, but Nik grabbed my jacket and the kelpie itself took a sideways step to stay under me. It briefly pinned its ears and angled a sour look back at me. I could feel its back muscles flexing against my thighs - for a moment the sheer strength in its body gave me second thoughts. Then the Auphe in me thought how very easy it would be to kill it, sitting right on its spine, and I was okay again.

Niko patted its neck, briskly, and grabbed a handful of wet mane. With his shoulder by its neck, he took a step backwards, towards its head. Then he moved - two running steps and he sprang, landing lightly and easily behind me. He wrapped an arm around my waist, and his breath was warm on my ear.

The kelpie waited a moment, then nodded its head and waded off into the water. The water swirled dark and cold around us, and rose from the kelpie's knees to its chest, over the tops of my boots. I grimaced. Cold wet socks, not my favorite dress code ever. Niko moved easily to the kelpie's motion, and I tried but it felt weird and I felt off-balance. I also wondered how deep into the water we were going - the lake was pretty big, and even though we'd told Ish and Robin and Promise where we were going, it'd take them a while to find us; no cell signal out here in the nature preserve. Go figure.

It occurred to me the water ought to be a hell of a lot deeper, but the kelpie was still walking like it was on solid ground. I started to look at Niko, but that would have involved some really awkward neck craning. So I stared straight ahead, between jet-black pointed ears.

"So twenty-one years later here's that pony-ride I wanted," I grumbled.

Niko chuckled. "So it is. Though she's hardly pony-sized."

"She?" It looked like an it to me.

"You'd have known if she was a stallion," Niko answered, calmly. Of course, he knew everything. I sighed and looked down at my hands, tangled in wet weeds and mane. Niko only hand one hand in the mane, the other hand fisted in my shirt over my hip. Well, he didn't wholly trust the kelpie to not drown us, if he was holding onto me so tightly. I looked back up between the pointed ears. There was a small island ahead, mostly made of rocks and two stunted scrubby trees.

The kelpie swam up and stepped up on the rocks. It was a damn good thing Niko leaned forward abruptly, shoving me forward too, because otherwise I probably would have knocked us over backwards when the kelpie came up on the rocks with a heave and a scramble. Then it was still, bowing its head almost to the ground. Niko nodded, and let ho of me, sliding down to land noiselessly on the wet rock. My jeans dripping wet from the knees down and my boots sloshing, I tried to do exactly like Nik had done, swinging a leg over and dropping to the ground. Shit, it was farther than I'd thought and I stumbled backwards. Niko snagged me by an arm and kept me from going off into the lake.

"The nest is here?" Niko queried, politely.

The kelpie nodded, and gestured to the high point of the island. It switched its wet tail and sighed like bubbles blown underwater. Its head drooped and one hind leg dropped slack. I raised an eyebrow and looked at Nik.

"You'll wait for us. Thank you." Niko nodded and turned, beginning to find his way up the rocks. I followed, less gracefully. How the hell he could make it look so damn easy, every single time... He paused on top of a small boulder and glanced back at me. "Well, we won't have to worry about them being awake when we get there."

I was tempted to flip him the bird, but I didn't want to go into this fight with a sprained finger. "No, but they won't smell us coming, at least. We reek of kelpie." It wasn't a bad smell, really, just musty and wet - still dark deep water rank with weeds and secret bones. I scrambled over another rock.

"Good to know." Niko cleared the edge and stepped up onto the island. I heard him draw his sword.

I had to grab the sandy gritty edge and haul myself up that way, the dirt sticking to my wet hands and pants. Grace incarnate, that was me. I got to my feet, and followed Niko's example, drawing my Glock. There was a shallow pool in the middle of the island, and there were the grundylows. What was a grundylow? An English bog-moster, with long spidery arms, a mouth like a barracuda, and eel tails. And apparently they liked to eat kelpie, because the moment Niko got close to the water, they came flopping out of it, grabbing at his legs to drag him in. Niko started lopping off arms and heads as if he'd expected it. I started shooting.

Well, we could take out about twenty monsters all one-by-one, or I could solve the problem easily. I whipped a grenade from my pocket, and pulled the pin. "Fire in the hole, Nik!" I shouted, and lobbed it right into the middle of the pool. I could have ben a damn good baseball player.

Niko bolted and jumped below the edge of the island. I followed, and landed almost on top of him as the grenade went off with an earth-rattling "whump!" Water sprayed down on us, and half-deaf I grinned at Niko. My solution was better, this time. Niko shook his head and stood up. He went over the bank again, and I followed, curious to see the damage. It looked like a sushi bar had exploded. There were bits and pieces of grundylow everywhere, and there wasn't a lot of water left in the pool. There were also weird crunchy green bits that I couldn't identify until I saw Niko roll a mostly-whole one over - it was an egg. It smelled pretty rank, and there was slime oozing out of the hole blasted into the shell.

"A nest was a more apt description than we knew," Niko mused. He moved to a still-twitching grundylow and finished it off. I headed in the opposite direction and did the same. When the only things still moving on the island were us, Niko and I headed back to where we'd left our kelpie parked.

It wasn't there anymore.

Guess we should have put the parking brake on. I looked at the dark smudge of the boat dock far across the water. "Damn. I was hoping I wouldn't have to swim today."

"Indeed," Niko agreed, and crouched at the water's edge.

Suddenly round black nostrils, bright green eyes, and pointed ears surfaced from the water. With a snort, the kelpie flung its head up, rose out of the water in a rear, and scrambled up onto the rocks. It whickered at us and nodded its head vigorously. Well, our ride was back, at least. I'd probably scared the bitch off with my grenade, come to think of it. Oh well. I got on better, this time, though still not as smoothly as Nik. How the hell had he learned that, anyway? I refused to believe he'd just known how to do it. He was good, but he wasn't_ that_ good.

Safely on the bank again, I tried to wring some of the water out of my jeans. The kelpie was paying us in lost wallets and jewelry, it looked like - that was what Niko was pulling out of the old plastic lunch cooler. He held up a key ring, and looked at the kelpie. It snorted and shook its head, looking smug. It slipped its head down, and after a moment, Niko reached out to pat it on the nose. I sauntered closer.

"You can't pay us with a car that's underwater," I told it. "Not only is that trickery worthy of Goodfellow, it's just being an ass."

The kelpie chuckled at me, and sidled closer. It stuck out its nose, like it had for Niko. I wasn't going to give in and pat the damn thing's nose. It was a flesh-eating monster. (So was part of me.) It had snapped at me. Its face was close and its breath didn't smell like water at all, weirdly. Its breath smelled like clover and grass and...

...its nose was soft and velvety and warm. I stared at my own hand for a moment, then snatched it back. The kelpie chuckled and tossed its head, and when I drew a knife it whirled and charged into the water, laughing all the way, the damn bitch. The spray was impressive, and then there was no kelpie at all. I stood on the bank and cursed after it, then decided that was stupid and stalked back to where Niko was sitting, suspiciously bland-faced. As I crouched beside him, I could hear the quiet clicking noise he made in his throat when he was trying very hard not to laugh.

"I don't suppose I remembered to mention the enchanted breath?" he managed, almost evenly.

I tackled him into the damn lake.

It was totally worth the wedgie he gave me.


	24. Our Love's the Perfect Crime

**A/N:** I do not own the Cal Leandros characters! Or the song used here. I was perfectly inspired and had to write some silly fluff. Alas, it came at the expense of scarring poor Cal's psyche.

* * *

><p><em>But can you hear me say?<em>  
><em>Don't throw me away <em>  
><em>And there's no way out <em>  
><em>I gotta hold you somehow<em>

_I wanna I wanna I wanna touch you_  
><em>You wanna touch me too <em>  
><em>Every day but all I have is time <em>  
><em>Our love's the perfect crime <em>

_I wanna I wanna I wanna touch you _  
><em>You wanna touch me too <em>  
><em>Every way and when they set me free <em>  
><em>Just put your hands on me<em>  
>-"I Wanna," All American Rejects<p>

* * *

><p>I jogged through the park. I was not exactly late to work, and this was a handy excuse to have a fight as an excuse for when I showed up late. Ishiah hadn't caught onto that one yet, but when he did I was probably going to catch hell for it.<p>

There was some sort of festival going on, or something; lanterns had been strung along one of the paths and there were musicians a guitarist, a violin, something else, somebody with drums. Food and music and a small crowd. Whatever, I was late.

Then I caught a familiar blonde head weaving through the crowd. I checked up and stared. Niko?

Niko, bringing Promise a little cup of punch. Huh. She smiled, and toasted him. Niko returned the gesture, and I snorted. Trust them to be so ridiculous; cheap clear plastic cups and everyone around them in jeans and T-shirts. Promise's dress was simple, something with flowers on it; Niko was in all black as usual.

The musicians got their act together and started playing a song. Several couples started dancing. Niko glanced at Promise, and offered her his hand, bowing slightly from the waist. She was smiling, he was as solemn as a post. She took their cups, set them on a bench, and took his hand. The other couples were doing something different; Niko and Promise were waltzing. Figured. I started to turn away and leave, but out of the corner of my eye I caught Niko's little smile. It was a smile I only saw rarely; a playful quirk of the lips he didn't often indulge in. I turned back, and blinked as Niko caught Promise by the waist and lifted her, spinning in a circle so her skirt fluttered and snapped and the little flower behind her ear tumbled free.

Promise laughed, arms around his neck, and Niko did too - soft and rich.

He set her down and swept her off into a much livier kind of dance, and they clasped hands like children and laughed at one another, spinning in giddy dizzy circles all on their own, at the edge of the crowd and blind to everyone else. Promise's cheeks were flushed, and Niko was smiling openly. The song ended and he caught her up in a hug, bowing his head over hers, whispering something in her ear. She reared back laughing, and slapped him on the shoulder playfully. Niko darted down and kissed her on the mouth while she was still mock-scolding.

I jolted like I'd been goosed - yikes, that was not what I wanted to be seeing. My brother's love life was definitely not my concern, especially when it looked like he was giving his vampire girlfriend's tonsils a good exploration. Yuck and _holy hell had he just groped her breast?!_

_Gyaaaaaah_ that was_ it_ for me. I turned on a heel and took off at a shameless jog. Just no, no, and no. I just did not need to know about Niko's sloppy makeouts or what kinky shit he decided to get up to in public.

Nope nope nope.

I needed a drink. Or preferably some brain bleach.

* * *

><p>Niko lifted his head and broke the kiss. "Think he's gone?"<p>

Promise laughed and playfully slapped his shoulder again. "You are _horrible_, I'll have you know."

Niko smiled, and leaned in until his breath feathered across her lips, hot and restless. "Milady," he whispered, voice deep and rich, "That does not sound like a complaint."

"It isn't," she told him, and kissed him again.


	25. Tactics

**A/N:** I do not own the Cal Leandros characters!

So then the muses run up to you with the weirdest open lines for a fic ever...

* * *

><p>"Okay, but <em>why<em> do I have to take my sheep with me this time? Last time I didn't have to."

"Because this time Robin is with the invaders, and they'll traumatize your sheep so much you'll lose your lamb crop, and in the light of the recent famine, you do need those lambs."

Robin Goodfellow heard this and protested that he'd never bother the sheep with so many fine soldiers around. I ignored him and squinted at the little terrain map Niko had spread over the corner of the bar, leaning on an elbow with a cleaning rag in hand. Niko sipped his tea and watched the rest of the bar.

"So the Romans are invading here and here." I tapped the map. "So I've got to retreat back this way. Only instead of just the women and kids, I've got to take the goddamn pregnant sheep with me."

"Correct."

"Okay. And I've got a small regiment of foot soldiers, and a few horseback archers, and we've been stationed here for almost a year."

"Also correct." Niko looked pleased. "You're remembering better."

I started to flip him off, then decided I needed that finger. Niko had decided in these recent weeks that my grasp of strategy needed improving. Niko being Niko, he was giving me historical invasions to rewrite, and hell if my history was good enough to remember what had been done right or not. I wasn't doing so hot. There was a_ reason_ Niko was the strategist, not me; my favorite method of repelling the enemies was "hit it with a really big gun." Surprise, when all I had were soldiers with spears and a few archers, there was no bigger gun available, and my hypothetical soldiers got hypothetically slaughtered.

"Can I split my forces?" I ignored Ishiah as he came over to frown disapprovingly. Niko was distracting me while I was on the clock. On the other hand, given my sterling personality and the effect it had on the customers, he might sell more if I was distracted.

"You can. How are you planning to do so?" Niko asked.

"I want, uh, four of my horse-archers and, uh, eight of my men to go with the shepherds and the sheep. I want them to go this way, and the main force will take the villagers to the caves this way." I traced lines on the map.

"Good choice." Niko was approving, and I relaxed until he asked, "How are you choosing those men?"

Oh damn. He'd gotten me here last time. "I'll...ask my captains which men are good with sheep. And can sneak really well." There, that was the right answer and I knew it. It didn't make me feel any less proud when Niko nodded.

"Excellent. We'll assume you are a well-liked commander this time-"

"Good, 'cause I'm damn tired of being assassinated."

"If you weren't so fond of suicide charges, you'd be better-liked," Niko returned, blandly. "Assuming you are well-liked, your captains do not lie to you and present the appropriately-skilled men. Explain to me why you sent the archers; this is difficult terrain for the horses."

"In case those horny Romans really want my sheep, they can be rearguard." I grinned as Robin rolled his eyes. "And they can be messengers. Just in case."

"Good forethought. Your sheep are attacked by a scouting party who come in from here." Niko tapped the map. "They are on foot, lightly armed, and there are five of them. Two have lances."

"My soldiers are under orders to guard the sheep but make their own choices in engaging the enemy." I thought about it, then added, "Since, you know, this isn't their first battle in General Cal's Time-Travelling Army."

Niko eyes me, then allowed that with a sigh. "Very well. They successfully engage the enemy, and both sheep and villagers are evacuated without incident. Well done. That only took you two days."

As opposed to the entire week I'd taken with the first problem. Niko didn't fuck around when it came to his training exercises. I shook his head and straightened from the bar with a grin. "So now we celebrate, right? Wine, women, song, all that fun shit?"

Niko just shook his head. I took that for a yes.

"Damn straight!"

Robin took a sip of his whiskey, and said, "Have I ever told you about the time Caligula and I-"

"Gotta go serve drinks." I dodged around Ishiah and hurried to the other end of the bar. I caught Ishiah's mutter about how _now_ I was willing to work, but as long as it got me away from Robin and his stories, hell, I'd work. I'd heard that one before, or one like it anyway, and I did _not_ need those mental images ever again in my life. I'd never look at a boot the same way again.


	26. Stars

**A/N:** I do not own the Cal Leandros series or any of the characters therein.

Wow what an unexpected hiatus. Sorry, guys, life ate me. I'm gonna start writing again, see?

* * *

><p>A soft slithering thump.<p>

Both heads raised from the bed, one blonde, one dark. Niko was half up on his elbows already, knife half-drawn from under his pillow. Cal huffed quietly beside him, scenting...then reached over and flipped on te light. Niko squinted, blinked furiously, and scanned the floor. Cal pointed, arm flopping over Niko's shoulder, but Niko had already seen it.

A slender, sinuous shape, blunt nose bobbing against the wall as the snake searched for a way back up.

Niko sheathed the knife, glancing at the hole in the ceiling tile, then stood and crossed to the snake. It sensed him coming and froze, lightning tongue flickering, unblinking dark eyes glittering like beads in the fait yellowed light. Niko bent and fearlessly slipped his hands under the rough belly scales, lifting coils of leaf-patterned body into the air. The serpent tried to slither down, stretching its head towards the floor. Niko simply set his palms under it, over and over, until it stilled and coiled around his forearms and wrists. It was a good four feet, if not longer, he estimated. A brown-and-grey patterned rat snake, harmless and docile as a pet.

Cal came creeping up behind him, and for a moment Niko was alarmed. Animals didn't always_ like_ Cal...but the snake didn't respond, head resting on his wrist. Cal reached out and touched the slick scales, grey eyes dark in his pale face, curiousity and sleepy interest mild in his features.

The snake shifted, and Cal held out his hands for the lithe length of it, smiling now as he fearlessly managed the loops and coils.

Niko wiped his hands on his pants, and peered up again at the hole in the ceiling tile. Well, they'd be having this problem again, most likely. Snakes were more welcome than rats, though. At least, he mentally amended, non-poisonus snakes.

He moved towards the door. After a moment, Cal followed, pale fingers curled gently around his scaly burden. Out, down the hall on silent socked feet, outside into the dark, dewdamped, starstudded velvet of the summer night. Niko breathed deeply, tasted flowers and rain, and watched the fireflies dance. He stood on the creaky wooden steps a moment, watching the darkness. Cal slipped past him, a slender shadow, and stepped down into the grass. He knelt, bent, and stilled. Niko could barely see the shift as the snake moved, departed to more reptile-friendly locales.

At last Cal stood, swaying, sleepy ten years old and a pale sliver of being in the endless summer night. Niko smiled and wrapped an arm around the thin shoulders as Cal bumped into him in passing.

Together they went back inside, and shut out the night.


	27. Tagalong

**A/N:** I do not own the Cal Leandros series, not the characters therein! I'm just writing one-shots with them.

* * *

><p>Niko leaned on Cal's shoulder and peered at the book. After several moments of silent, shared reading, Cal jiggled his shoulder in annoyance. Niko obligingly stopped leaning, but went on looming quietly and waited for Cal to turn the page. Cal did not - he stuck his finger in the book, flipped it closed, and stared up at Niko with a very disgruntled expression. Niko merely shrugged.<p>

"I take it you do not intend to join us?" he asked instead, crossing his arms on the back of the couch.

"Do I look like I'm dressed to go wherever?" Cal asked. Indeed, without a shirt, he was probably not going to get a pass to any venue, let alone one where Niko had been expressly informed he was to wear slacks and a button-up, at least.

Niko was not opposed to dressing up, but he did wonder what Promise had against his jeans. They were both comfortable and serviceable, and black went with everything. Not to mention it hid blood stains extremely well. Promise seemed determined to wrangle him out of them at every presented opportunity. Metaphorically, Niko thought to himself, not literally. Well, sometimes literally. Whoops, not a rabbit-trail to run down while conversing  
>with his little brother. Right, back on track.<p>

"Your attire is lacking some essentials, I admit," Niko mused, and jabbed a swift finger towards Cal's bare ribs. Cal blocked him with the book and smirked triumphantly.

Niko promptly flicked his ear with the other hand.

Cal jerked his head aside, swearing.

"You were invited. You are welcome to come," Niko continued, as if no interruption had occurred. The glare was expected; he knew Cal disliked it when he did that.

"Nah. I don't like getting dressed up." Still the glare and now the petulant scowl of 'I don't wanna' that Cal had worn when being coerced ever since he'd been small. Personally, Niko thought it made him look about three years old. He took care never to mention that to Cal, as it would not only offend him horribly, but also damage his ego.

It was subtle coercion, but Niko was being insistent. He wanted Cal to come. It wasn't a date, it was a broad invitation - both Robin and Ishiah had been invited as well. Niko personally doubted Ishiah would appear, but the gesture had been made nonetheless. Besides, it was good for Cal to get out of the house on excursions that did not involve killing things, danger to life and limb, or his job. (Which often included both the former.)

"I don't particularly enjoy it, either, little brother."

"You consciously own dress pants."

"You unconsciously own a pair. They're on your bed, should you choose to come." Niko glanced at the clock on the wall, and straightened. "Time to leave." He ruffled Cal's hair in passing. Cal ducked and made grumbling noises.

Ten minutes later, Niko smiled to himself as he heard Cal trotting up the sidewalk behind him. Cal dropped into step beside him. The battered leather jacket had not - as Niko's duster had been - swapped out for a blazer, but there were both slacks and button up. Black sneakers, but there was a belt and Cal was pulling his hair up into a ponytail. At the next cross-walk, Niko leaned over and straightened both it and the jacket.

"Gee, thanks Mom," Cal drawled.

Niko smiled, but swatted him on the back of the head anyway. Some respect had to be  
>maintained.<p>

Half an hour later, they'd been thrown out of the theater for throwing popcorn at the actors on stage, catcalling, and reciting entire passages of the poem (in the original Old English). Niko was still trying very hard not to laugh, because Promise was annoyed, but Cal was smirking to himself.

Perhaps it had not been a very good idea to go to a play of Beowulf anyway.

Niko didn't think he regretted it.


	28. Tasseography

**A/N:** I do not own the Cal Leandros series or its characters: they are the property of Rob Thurman! I'm just here having fun with headcanon.

* * *

><p>Niko sipped his tea. One last sip left, and he swirled the cup automatically as he looked around the Ninth Circle. It was near to closing time and he was here to walk Cal home. Another swirl of the cip and Niko drank the last sip. He peered briefly into the cup, as was his habit, and examined the patterns left by the loose tea-leaves.<p>

Beside him, Robin stopped talking abruptly. Niko glanced up, startled by the sudden silence, only to find Robin staring at him with bemused green eyes. "Niko, are you _reading_ your tea leaves?"

Niko raised a silent eyebrow. What did it _look_ like?

Cal, overhearing, answered. "Yeah, he always does that. Wierd as fuck."

He ducked automatically. Niko flicked the cracker lower, expecting the evasive maneuver, and hit him on the ear. Cal flinched sideways and clapped a hand over his ear, swearing. Niko shook his head, and glanced at Robin. "Yes. Something of an old habit, I'm afraid."

Robin made a curious noise that echoed in his bottle of whiskey. He finished his drink and set the bottle on the counter. "I would have thought that, well, with Sophia... Do you believe in it?"

"No," Niko answered, serenely. Certainly he'd learned tasseography from Sophia, that and palmistry, but he didn't believe either could predict the future. He considered his last cracker, and took a bite. Salty-rich and whole-wheat crunch: he brought his own crackers. They doubled as incentives for Cal to stay in line. "I think only a blessed few of us mortals are allowed to see the future. And even then I believe that vision is limited." He thought of George, long-gone, and added, "There are things the human mind is not meant to know."

"Very wise of you," Robin declared, but above the teasing smile his green eyes were old and ancient and a little sad. "But really. Why read tea leaves?"

"There is a certain perverse delight in proving even the pretense of foreboding predictions wrong." Niko smiled a little as he said it, and traced a thumb over his own short life-line across his palm.

His answer made Robin laugh out loud, and Cal, across the bar, shared a knowing look.


End file.
